


More Things in Heaven and Earth

by Ladygoshawk



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Canon-Typical Violence, Cussing, F/M, How Do I Tag, M/M, Multi, My First AO3 Post, Original Witch Characters - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-10-10 15:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 117,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17428712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladygoshawk/pseuds/Ladygoshawk
Summary: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to HoratioSteve and Bucky have made a life for themselves among the Avengers, doing what they can to help out (in Steve's case) and balance the books (in Bucky's). It's not what either of them ever imagined back in their rickety old Brooklyn flat before the War, but after everything, it's something. Maybe more than either of them thinks they deserve.Then Steve gets blown into a garden in Bed-Stuy, and things start to look even better - and weirder - than ever before.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

“Look out, she’s gonna blow aga—Jesus, Cap! Get outta there!” Bucky’s voice sounded frantic over the comms.

“I’m almost there!” Captain America answered, focused on the gigantic creature’s absurdly-shaped mouth. He swung a heavy packet of explosives in his hand, watching for an opening as he dodged the smaller, though still pony-sized, offspring.

“Cap, you gotta get out now!” Falcon insisted. In the sky, he peeled away from Iron Man to rocket toward Cap, but a lot of distance stood between the two.

He saw his opening. Bashing another creature in the face with his shield, he cleared just enough space to spin once, releasing the bundle of explosives on a graceful arc right into the mother-creature’s gaping mouth. “Fire in the hole!” he called over the comm. It had armed the moment it left his hand, courtesy of the cord now dangling uselessly from his wrist, and he turned to do as they’d demanded and get the hell out.

Except that the smaller creatures had effectively walled him in. At least two dozen stood shoulder-to-shoulder across the otherwise-deserted street, blocking his escape routes and pinning him between them and their lumbering mother-thing. Which was about ten seconds from exploding in a fiery ball of very sharp, very toxic projectile scale-quills. And oh, didn’t someone say something about her getting ready to blow again?

He whirled and brought his shield up just in time to catch most of the barrage of projectiles. The sharp sting of a few good hits registered along both legs, one hip, and his right shoulder and arm, but he could feel as he jumped out of his defensive crouch that nothing had hit solidly enough to threaten his life in the next few minutes. He just needed to get back to Tony or Natasha and the doses of anti-toxin they’d carried from the Tower. Neither of them had managed to get to him before…this.

“Steve!” Sam sounded frightened.

“Fuck’s sake! Steve!” Bucky sounded angry.

“Cap!” The chorus of the rest of the team sounded a little desperate. He wanted to reassure them, but he had no time.

A fire escape caught his attention as he straightened and the smaller things started advancing toward him. How long since he’d thrown the bomb? He knew he didn’t have a lot of time. Seconds, at best. Two long strides and he leaped, planting a foot on a beast’s head, another’s shoulders, and another leap put him on the rail of the bottom fire escape. He reached for the ladder above—

Out of time. The mother-beast shrieked an ear-piercing howl and detonated, blowing blood, poisonous scales, and gore down every avenue in an unnecessarily large radius. The force of the blast caught him stretched and off-balance, with only a tenuous hold of the rusting metal. It slid out of his grasp, his boot came off the rail, and a timeless moment of freefall culminated in a bone-crunching stop and blank blackness.

 

* * *

 

“The cuts and all the bruises, they’re already healing pretty well,” a voice, young and male, broke into the dark. It sounded a little panicky. “It’s the…whatever’s causing this fever. Gods, Mom, he’s so freakin’ warm…”

“I know, son.” Female voice, calm and soothing. Something cool touched his forehead, burning like Arctic ice. “Just do what you can. I’ll help as much as possible. I think his body’ll take care of anything we can’t. Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe, and focus. Remember?”

“I’m trying!”

“Breathe!” A few moments of silence. “Good. Now, don’t try. Don’t think. Just do.”

He tried to open his eyes, tried to say he’d woken, to ask who they were, where he was. None of it worked. He felt far too warm, and entirely frozen at the same time. He hadn’t felt like this since before the serum. It confused him, and he had to ask… But something soft and comforting swept over him a little like a blanket, but inside, and then the dark rose up and enveloped him.

 

* * *

 

When he awakened again, he came into consciousness all at once even before he’d opened his eyes. He lay there for several long moments, trying to keep his breathing even and quiet while he took stock of himself and his surroundings.

He hurt, head to toe. Dozens of small pains, fading by the moment, provided an odd counterpoint to a few larger things. His right wrist felt almost-broken, his right knee definitely had something significantly wrong with it, and he thought at least a couple of his ribs on the right side had taken some serious damage, too. Whatever had happened, his right side seemed to have gotten the worst of it. Worse, though, was what felt like a third-degree burn…except that it lay bizarrely under his skin. Under all of his skin, from the soles of his feet right up to his scalp. How could that even happen?

Memory of his last battle finally swam within his grasp, then, and he had to stop himself from lurching to his feet. First, that would really hurt, and second, he still didn’t know where he’d fetched up. He could only clearly recall the events up to the explosion, and he couldn’t have remained lying wherever he’d landed on the street. For one thing, he lay on something soft, with something warm and soft lying over him. For another, his immediate surroundings seemed awfully quiet, though he could hear the distant sounds of continuing conflict somewhere. The rest of the team must have continued fighting the smaller creatures.

And that was the other thing that told him he hadn’t stayed on the street: he didn’t have Sam, Bucky, Tony, or Natasha leaning over him, worried, angry, or snarking. If he’d landed where they could find him, at least one of them would already have arrived.

So he opened his eyes and looked around without moving. He took up the entirety of a fairly comfortable couch in what looked like someone’s living room. The little available light came from somewhere behind him, and only dimly lit a coffee table, a fireplace with a blank television on the wall above, a loveseat, and an armchair.

In the armchair, a young man in his late teens had dozed off, his head lolling to one side. The position didn’t look very comfortable, but someone had draped a knitted blanket over him. A blanket very much like the one that lay stretched over his own chest and legs. A large first aid kit lay open on the coffee table beside him, and only upon seeing it did he recognize the feel of assorted bandages applied over the worst of his injuries.

Injuries that should have been covered, or at least surrounded, by his tactical uniform. A uniform he felt entirely too comfortable to be wearing. Without thinking, he lifted a hand to touch his face. No mask covered the top half of his features.

At the movement, though, a kind of soft whirring he hadn’t even noticed came to a sudden stop. “How are you feeling?” a woman’s voice asked softly.

“About like I’d expect,” he temporized, wondering if he dared try sitting up.

Soft footfalls approached across the hardwood floor, and then a woman with long, dark hair and dark brown eyes knelt beside him, frowning faintly in concern. “Well, I hope your expectations and mine are very different, then, because you really worried us when we picked you up out of our garden.” She laid her hand on his forehead, checking his temperature.

After a moment, her kind smile broadened slightly with relief. “At least you feel a little cooler, now. We did what we could, but it’s still crazy dangerous out there and the phones aren’t working yet. Would you like some water?”

He really wanted to contact his team, but he needed to figure out his situation, first. “Yes, please.” He reached for the back of the couch to sit up, but she stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“No, don’t. Let me help you. I’m pretty sure you’ve got a couple of cracked ribs.” She slid an arm under his shoulders. “You should probably take it easy on that wrist. It’s not broken, but it’s all sorts of not-fun colors. And I put in a few lines of stitches neither of us wants you to tear out. Easy, now.”

Working together, they levered him into a semi-reclining position against the arm of the couch and a pile of pillows she must have had ready close by. She’d had that much right: it hurt, and he definitely felt the warning pull of stitches along his ribs, shoulder, and one thigh. Then she cracked the seal on a fresh bottle of water and handed it over to him. To his surprise, he felt suddenly parched, and drained the whole bottle in several long swallows.

“Thank you,” he managed, after. “Where am I?”

She chuckled, cheeks pinking. “You’re still in Bed-Stuy. I’m Selene, that’s my son, Asa. He goes by Ace, though. Whatever exploded out there, it blew you into our garden and wrapped you around one of my brick garden beds.”

“We brought you in and got you as cleaned up as we could.” She waved a hand at the kit on the coffee table. “I’m…um…afraid there isn’t much left of your uniform, though. It looks like you went through a paper shredder. I hope you don’t mind, but we put you in some old clothes we had lying around. They’ve been in a box in the attic for most of a decade, so I’m sorry if they smell a little odd.”

Given the nature of the thing they’d been fighting, the state of his uniform didn’t surprise him very much. It also explained the tee and sweat pants he now wore, though the bagginess of them definitely surprised him. He hadn’t encountered clothes too big for him since before the serum.

Now that he’d gotten vertical and felt a little less groggy, he could see that Natasha probably had at least a few inches of height on Selene. His hostess had kept her voice low, but she seemed flustered. She’d also stopped talking and looked at him as if expecting a response. He realized he needed to give one. “How long have I been out?”

“About five hours,” she answered after a glance over his shoulder.

“Five—!” He’d been incommunicado for five hours, and none of his team had found him? Had someone gotten hurt? How had the battle gone after he’d been knocked out of it? Anxiety rose, and his left hand rose to touch his ear, but of course his earpiece hadn’t stayed there. “I have to contact my team. I had a radio…”

Her expression had gone back to worried. “We didn’t find anything like that with you. Unless…was it in your belt?”

“No, but…” He frowned. Stark had made the earpieces all-inclusive, transmitter, receiver, and rechargeable power source. But they each carried a transponder, too, for essentially the situation he found himself in now. Someone should have already come looking. “Can I get the belt?”

“Of course!” She patted his knee quickly and pulled herself to her feet. For the first time he noticed that for all the grace in her movement, the way she held herself suggested a certain amount of pain beneath the nervous energy. Had she risked herself and gotten hurt retrieving him? “Wait just a minute. I’ll be right back.”

She didn’t even disappear long enough for him to wonder where she’d put his things before she returned, the mangled utility belt hanging from her hand. He winced as soon as he saw it, all of his questions answered with just the one glance. His transponder had traveled in one of the pouches on his right side, beside the pouch that held his Starkphone.

Both pouches, and one more besides, had gotten perforated by projectile scales which still stuck out of the leather. Given the damage on his side, he’d probably landed on them, too. Just to be sure, he accepted the belt and opened them up to check, careful not to touch the broken scale-quills, only to find his suspicions confirmed. His electronics could not possibly function any longer. Great.

He set the belt aside. “I have to let them know I’m all right. I should go—”

But she’d already started shaking her head. “Nope.” The color on her cheeks deepened. “I’m sorry, but it’s still a warzone out there. You aren’t in any shape to go out in that. Especially in a tee-shirt and sweats. I’d offer you one of our phones to call in, but the circuits are overloaded. Nothing’s working, right now.”

Of course not. But that reminded him of something else. “Why are you here? They told us they’d evacuated the whole area.”

“Oh! I…um… Ace and I don’t really watch much television,” she answered with an awkward smile and a faint shrug. Her fingers twisted in the hem of her tee shirt. “Or listen to radio. By the time the phones went off with the emergency alert, we could see horse-sized porcupine-dog-things running in the streets and hear something really enormous crashing around up north.”

She shrugged, then seemed to realize what she was doing to her shirt and dropped the cloth from her fingers. “We figured it’d be safer to stay put, hole up, and hide in the basement if worse came to worst. None of those things has tried to get in here, though, and it means we were here when you landed in the garden. It worked out. Do…ah… Do you want to try to eat something?”

He blinked at her. She sure seemed to be taking the day’s weirdness pretty well, all things considered. His presence in her living room apparently made her feel awkward and nervous, but he’d gotten used to having that effect on people. He still needed to get in touch with his team, but at least for the moment, he didn’t have any way to do so.

Briefly, he considered going out to track the fight down, anyway, but Bucky’s voice calling him an idiot in memory shut that line of thought down. Selene had it right, he was in no shape to do something like that, even with his shield. Which…

“My shield?”

“Oh! Right here.” She reached down beside the couch, lifting the shield into his view before setting it down under his left hand. “You still had it stuck to your arm when we found you. I’d guess it saved you at least one broken bone.”

He could wear it, but there’d be no throwing it for at least a couple of days with his right wrist mangled like this. Fantastic. At least they wouldn’t have to look for it, the way they’d had to drag the Potomac after the fall of SHIELD. So. While not in any way ideal, his situation really hadn’t wound up as bad as it certainly could have. And the gigantic mother-creature had been blown to bits, so he’d just count the whole mess as a win and do his best to relax.

Ace stirred in his chair before he could answer her question. “Mmn…Mom?” He rubbed an eye with the knuckles of one hand as he stretched and looked around. “Oh, hey, you’re awake! How do you feel?”

Mom? She’d called him ‘son’, even introduced him that way, but this woman didn’t look old enough to have a son that age! Steve managed a smile through his surprise. It came easier than he’d expected. “Not too bad, considering. I want to thank you both for your help.”

The boy colored faintly, but grinned. “You’re welcome! It’s not like anybody’d leave you out there! I mean, you were there ‘cause you were trying to help us!”

Selene chuckled again, eyeing the young man fondly. “Exactly. You’re more than welcome, Captain Rogers.”

“Oh, call me Steve, please, Ma’am.”

“Only if you’ll call me Selene. I’m close to your practical age, after all.” She fixed him with an amused look that unaccountably made him feel like blushing, too. He managed to nod, instead, and she grinned.

“Ace, go wash up. I’ve had a Crock Pot roast going since this morning. We’ll eat in here, away from the garden windows.” Her expression, still a little pink, went back to concern. “Do you think you can eat something that substantial, Steve, or would you prefer something lighter? I have soup or stew in the fridge, if you’d rather.”

Feeling a little swept off-kilter, he shook his head. “The roast smells fantastic. I’ll have that, if there’s enough.”

“Good thing they only had large roasts when I went marketing last, huh?” She smirked cheekily. “Ought to be plenty.”

The meal was fantastic, and Steve’s ridiculous metabolism had worked overtime to heal his injuries, so he’d powered through four servings of meat and vegetables before he’d even realized it. Selene eyed him with amusement again when he finally came up for air, blushing at how much he’d eaten. She waved off his apology with a smile and another chuckle.

“Been feeding a teenager for years,” she explained, gesturing at Ace, who had his fork halfway to his mouth from his second helping of everything. “I know how it works. You’ve had a busy day. Eat as much as you like.”

Even so, he didn’t miss how little she actually ate from her plate. Barely half of what she’d served herself actually disappeared, and that much very slowly. He wondered about it but didn’t feel he should ask. They didn’t know him, not really, and he didn’t know them at all.

Ace cleared up without being asked, and Steve heard the sink running in the kitchen. He wanted to offer to help, but the aches in his injuries told him that moving very much remained a bad idea. Selene put their folding trays away, but not until she came back in and sat down again did Steve realize he hadn’t paid any attention to the south half of the room.

Off to his left, where he hadn’t been able even to look until they’d set him fully upright to eat, an actual spinning wheel sat under a bright floor lamp. A tuft of something fuzzy hung from the side facing the armless, leather-padded chair Selene had just settled into, and another piece that looked a little like a half-empty bobbin of thread held what could only be the yarn spun from that bit of fluff. A large basket on the floor at her side held what he recognized from his mother’s long-ago workbasket as a number of partially-completed knits in several different yarns, though he couldn’t see anything he could recognize as knitting needles.

He hadn’t seen anyone actually knitting since they’d dug him out of the ice in the crashed Valkyrie, and he’d only ever seen pictures of wool being spun. His mother and Bucky’s had bought their knitting yarn for socks and sweaters from sundries stores when they could, or unraveled it from old things to make new when they couldn’t. He’d never imagined anyone in the twenty-first century, where it seemed no one made anything by hand and everything broken merely got replaced entirely, bothering to actually spin their own yarn to make things. He ran his left hand over the blanket lying on the couch cushion beside him.

“Yes,” she said softly, startling him. “I made it, and the one on the chair over there. And the covers on the pillows you were lying on. I wove those, though.”

He blinked at her, surprised, and then looked down at the pillows. The cloth that covered them had seemed rougher than he’d become accustomed to since waking out of the ice, but he’d seen the like for sale in home stores. It hadn’t occurred to him that these could be different until she’d said so. “My looms and the sewing machine are in the workroom down the hall.”

“You’re a…seamstress?” he hazarded, feeling entirely wrong-footed. Did this new century have a different term for it?

“No, not really.” She shook her head. “Not at all. I dabble…in a lot of things, actually. I suppose I’m a writer, by trade, but I’m also a bit of an amateur fiber artist. Hm. Or…semi-professional? Part-time?”

She coughed self-consciously and shrugged again. “It started out as a hobby that got entirely out of hand when I learned to knit. Now, I do a little of almost any kind of fiber-related art you can think of. It’s turned into a tiny side-business of its own, though I only produce what and when I want to. I sell things on the internet, sometimes, or at local craft fairs if I have enough inventory to bother with.”

Ace poked his head through the kitchen door. “Don’t get her started, she’ll talk your ear off all night!” he warned with a grin. “Done with the dishes, Mom.”

“He’s right,” she agreed apologetically, cheeks going pink again. “I really will. Thank you, son. Will you let the dogs out and feed them, please? Maybe see if they’ll actually go outside, first? Then homework.”

“I got it all done, already. I had some time at school, and then most of my shift at work.”

“Oh, good!” She smiled. “Then you can practice that piece for Missus See.”

He rolled his eyes. “I know, I know.”

“Of course you do. You just don’t do it.”

“I do, too!”

“I haven’t heard that piece in more than a week, son, don’t you kid me.”

The boy heaved an exaggerated, long-suffering sigh, threw an impish grin at Steve, and vanished back through the door. Steve found himself wearing a genuine smile. “Dogs?”

“Oh!” Selene eyed him with concern. “I hope you’re okay with dogs! I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask. We’ve got two…well, they’re medium-sized mutts, really. Rescues. We put them in my room when we found you, so we could clean you up without their noses in everything, but they’re probably going to want to come and say hello. Is that all right? They’re really well-behaved. I couldn’t have them, else.”

“No, no, that’s fine.” He just barely resisted the urge to wave his injured hand. “I actually like dogs a lot, but I’ve never been able to have one. Although…I suppose I probably could, now.”

“Whoa, wait—no!” The sound of Ace’s voice sounded a little muffled. Then, louder, “Mom! Incoming!”

A scrabbling on the wooden floors announced the arrival of a pair of…yes, definitely “mutts”. At maybe fifty pounds apiece, give or take, the pair of hooligans that rounded the kitchen door with ears perked and tails wagging high appeared thoroughly mixed in both form and coloring. Both had short, smooth hair.

“Dusk! Sable! Sit!” Selene ordered before either dog had gotten past the doorway. They froze, then sat obediently. “Good dogs! Now, easy. Okay, say hello. Easy!”

The dogs definitely got the message, as they both rose and walked over to Steve. Neither so much as offered to jump onto the couch, though they jockeyed a bit for position before settling one on either side of his knees with their heads pressing into his lap. He laughed and gently stroked both heads. “Hi, guys. Which is which?”

“Gah, sorry, they turned into eels the minute I opened the door,” Ace apologized from the doorway. “The black one on your right is Sable. The brindle’s Dusk, and they’re both gigantic babies.”

For a long moment, Steve continued to pet the pair, who leaned heavier and heavier the longer it went on. Eventually, he couldn’t suppress the wince when Sable leaned just a little too hard on his injured knee. Selene clapped her hands. “Okay, you two, outside! Go on, outside!”

They each threw him a longing stare, then reluctantly got up and trotted into the kitchen. Ace followed them, muttering about what attention-sponges they made, and Steve chuckled. “They’re well-behaved. It’s nice your landlord lets you keep pets.”

“Well, since it’s my building…”

“You own the building?”

Selene only nodded, still smiling. “It’s only six apartments. And at the moment, it’s all empty but our place here. It does make it easier to have pets, though.”

“I’m sure it does. So what does—” He stopped himself, embarrassed by the question he’d started to ask. It seemed incredible, how comfortable he already felt with this little family. “Sorry, none of my business. I just…”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s okay, really. I don’t mind.” She waved his embarrassment off, an understanding tilt to her smile. “If it makes it easier, I’ll ask you a question.”

Well, turnabout was only fair play, after all. “Sure.”

She tilted her head toward the kitchen. “So what are – were? – those things out there today? Do you know where they came from?”

He suppressed his surprise. He’d expected her to ask something more personal, the way the media – or anyone, really – always did when they caught him outside the Tower. It took him a moment to consider the question and the operational security the situation warranted.

“I don’t actually know, unfortunately,” he finally answered with the truth. “We’d had some warning that someone had something big planned for New York sometime soon, but nothing more definite than that. We’re pretty sure someone created them, though how anyone could make something that size and keep it a secret from the neighbors is beyond me. The big one came up out of the East River, though, so maybe they’re at least partially aquatic. I wish I had a better answer for you.”

“Well, it’s more than I knew before.” She shrugged. “Maybe more than we’ll get on the news once it’s all over with. These things seem to drop off the public radar awfully fast, anymore. I’m still not entirely sure what happened over in Sokovia three years ago, for instance.”

He found himself telling her the story, or at least as much of it as he dared. Some of it remained classified, but he told her what he could, and she listened with something in her eyes that told him she could infer at least some of what he didn’t say. And, strangely, that she might have gotten it right, though she also wouldn’t ask. While he spoke, he heard Ace let the dogs back in from the garden, and then the sounds of what could only be kibble hitting ceramic bowls.

Ace’s footsteps retreated back up the hallway a moment later. A door closed softly as Steve wound his explanation down, the pieces of the story he had clearance to tell taking up a distressingly short amount of time, and for a moment the only sounds in the house were those of the dogs’ nails clicking against the floor as they came back into the living room and stationed themselves at his knees again.

“Hm. Well. That’s something, all right.” Selene turned almost absently to face the spinning wheel for the first time since she’d sat down, and she reached down for something at her feet on the other side of her chair where he couldn’t see. When she straightened, she held a thick, fluffy rope that matched the tuft already hanging from the wheel, and her hands and feet all went into motion at once without her seeming to think about it.

The wheel hummed softly to life. “We got probably less than half of that, on the international news here in the States. I might have read a little bit more online, but probably not by much. It makes me glad we have people like you who will – and can – face things like that. Every time something like it, or like today, happens, I’m glad we have the Avengers.”

He opened his mouth to demure, to deflect, maybe to ask if she knew how he could contact his team, but it died in his throat when Ace’s voice filtered from somewhere down the hall. Deeper than his speaking voice and fuller by far, it rose into the first notes of an Italian-language song Steve hadn’t heard since his time in Italy during World War Two. Then, it had been a fresh-faced young Italian man singing in a light tenor during a hastily-thrown-together show put on by his village to thank the American GIs for liberating them from their Hydra occupiers.

 Mussolini or no, Hydra had become distinctly unwelcome almost everywhere they’d built a base. It had made for a nice diversion, but he hadn’t given that performance any more thought afterward until this very moment.

He didn’t even realize he’d closed his eyes to listen until he had to open them again when the song ended. Selene watched him with a faint smile, hands and feet still working the spinning wheel without hesitation. She nodded, tilting her head toward the hall. “Ace and I would have been in a bad way without the Avengers, today. When uncanny things like that happen in the world, it’s folk like us who need people like you. So thank you for being willing to stand up.”

“I’m glad to do it,” he answered faintly, feeling blindsided and wrong-footed once more. He hadn’t expected that at all. Ace started the song again, then followed it with something else in Italian.

Two songs that sounded like some of the Broadway things Pepper liked came next, and the young man continued with a couple of opera-sounding pieces in, of all things, German. Three pieces in French followed. When the young man cycled back to the first Italian piece nearly an hour after he’d started singing, Steve found himself as mesmerized by the mother’s work at the wheel as by the son’s music.

“Does he speak all of those languages?” He asked absently, eyes focused on the deftness of her hands as she turned colored fluff into yarn. The young man’s pronunciation sounded very good, to him. He’d even understood most of it, which had come as a surprise. He hadn’t used French or German since he’d woken up in a new century.

“Well, yes and no.” Her smile held no small amount of pride. “He’s fairly good with languages, so he’s picked up quite a bit just from singing. Japanese came pretty fast when he started taking it at school.”

The gentle sway of her body as she worked the foot pedals seemed nearly hypnotic. “He hasn’t had any formal training with Italian, German, or French, and while he’s picked up bits of Russian and Ukrainian here and there from hearing it on the streets or from friends at school, he hasn’t had any true teaching in those, either. He just has an ear for such things. I think it comes from the music.”

She chuckled. “I tease him by saying he just enjoys showing off by making noise. I’m a writer when I’m not making art with fiber. I know you’re an artist, too, I’ve seen reproductions of your sketches in books and on television. But we’re neither of us the kind of warrior you are. I’m glad we could help you today, and I know Ace feels the same way.”

Which gave him quite a lot of thinking to do, at least until Ace came into the room waving a smartphone. “I just got a couple texts!” he announced. “I bet the phone lines are clear enough for you to call someone, if you want. Here, you can borrow mine.”

Steve accepted the glowing phone with a grateful smile. “Hey, thank you. You sounded really great earlier, by the way.”

Ace ducked his head, smile turning shy. “Thanks.” He crouched down beside Sable, pretending to focus on petting her while Steve tried to remember the number for the secured emergency line to the Tower.

“Stark Industries,” FRIDAY’s voice answered on the second ring. Tony had replaced the AI after the original had gotten melded into Vision, but he still hadn’t gotten used to the new, female voice. Even so, he felt relieved to hear it.

“Hey, FRIDAY, it’s Steve.”

“I’m so pleased to hear you, Sir! The rest of the team has successfully dealt with today’s trouble and returned safely home. Shall I notify them of your safety, as well? They have been most concerned.”

A knot of anxiety loosened in his chest at that. “Yes, I’m a little banged up, but it’s nothing a couple days off won’t fix. My Starkphone and the transponder took two shots too many from the explosion, so neither would work and the phones have been out. I’m at…uh…”

He glanced at Selene, who murmured the address. He repeated it. “I’ll need a ride in a car or something. Don’t let Tony send an Iron Man suit, all right? I’d like to get back without any more injuries.”

“Most certainly, Sir. Sergeant Barnes is already heading for the garage.”

Shit. Bucky’d probably be livid, and he’d probably scare Selene and Ace with it. But FRIDAY was right, there’d be no stopping him now. Damn. “Uh, maybe you should suggest Sam come, too?”

“I shall do so, Sir.”

“Thanks, FRIDAY. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Sir.”

He tapped the red bar, and the call ended as he handed the phone back to Ace. “Thanks again for that. It’ll be maybe an hour or so, depending on how bad traffic is after the mess those things made on the roads.”

“Are they coming from Avengers Tower?” Selene asked.

“Yes.” He couldn’t help a big, relieved smile. “Everyone got back okay. I…uh…I guess they’ve been pretty worried about me, though. They might be a little…upset…when they get here?” Understatement of the year, there, and he tried not to wince as guilt rose.

She sniffed. “Well, I would hope so, or they wouldn’t be very good friends. I wish we’d had some way for you to contact them sooner. I hope they didn’t worry too much, though.”

“Actually, they probably did. Bucky’s been overprotective since we were kids.”

Mother and son both smirked. “Overprotective, huh?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “And here I felt badly for him because he couldn’t always stick around to protect you.”

He stared at her, feeling faint heat creeping up his neck, and then turned at Ace’s soft snicker. “Yeah, Mom’s kind of all up in that history stuff. All the stories, y’know? So there’s not a lot she doesn’t know about the big stuff in history. And you were part of Dubya-Dubya-Two, so she knows what there is to know about you, too. At least the public stuff. We’ve both seen the pictures and she’s read most of the stories.”

“Ace!” Her giggle took the sting out of the rebuke, though. Steve turned back to look at her again. She shrugged, pink-cheeked and sheepish, without taking her eyes off her work. “Sorry, Steve. I can’t even argue. He’s right. In my defense, though, my Second World War phase happened as research for a piece I was writing several years before they found you. I didn’t have any idea I’d ever actually meet you.”

_Well, if they can tease me…_ He heaved a dramatic sigh. “Story of my life. Everyone knows all about me, and I know nothing about anyone.”

Selene blinked, going wide-eyed with apologetic horror. Ace mirrored his mother’s expression. They looked so very alike that there’d be no mistaking their relation – although Steve still thought they looked more like sister and brother than parent and child. In the face of their genuine concern, though, he couldn’t hold the ruse for long. He snickered.

Immediately, Selene gasped, then laughed out loud and snatched something out of a little pouch hanging from the spinning wheel to fling at him. It hit him in the chest with a soft thump. “You’re horrible!” She scolded, laughing. “Making me think we’d upset you! Ugh, see if we’re ever sympathetic again!”

“Did you just throw a…” he lifted the thing, turning it over to identify it. “Is this the head of a sock monkey? Did you decapitate a sock monkey and throw its head at me? At a wounded soldier?”

Ace snickered, and Selene laughed. “Oh no, you don’t get to pull that card on me, mister! You just tried to play my sympathies! No more sympathy for you!”

“She’s a total softie,” Ace stage-whispered. “Don’t believe a word she says!”

Another soft lump of something flew across the room, beaning the young man square in the forehead. “Traitor!”

“Ow! Quit throwing tape measures at me!” He rubbed at the spot between his eyes, pulling a face. “She’s a softie, but she’s got good aim.”

She’d thrown another sock monkey. Steve collected it from the couch where it’d landed, stared at the pair in his hand, and burst out laughing. It hurt, but it felt worth a little pain.

“How many of these things do you have? They’re tape measures?”

“There’s plenty more where those came from.” She made the threat with another already in her hand. Then she sniffed, looking haughty. “I happen to like sock monkeys. They understand me. Unlike the two mean brutes in my living room.”

“We’re mean?” Steve demanded, unable to stop grinning.

“You’re throwing things at us!” Ace seconded.

“It’s self-defense! You’re picking on me!”

From there, the conversation degenerated into too much laughing for coherent conversation and soft things flung back and forth across the room – Selene really did have excellent aim – until both dogs had gotten so excited by the hilarity that they each brought a toy and started shoving them into hands and laps. Ace got into a wrestling match with both dogs on the floor in front of the fireplace that Steve would have joined, if not for his still-healing injuries. The young man disappeared, giggling, under a hundred collective pounds of wriggling dog.

It concerned Steve for a moment, but Selene wore a fond, indulgent smile. If she didn’t worry, he wouldn’t either. Instead, he sat back to laugh at the spectacle.

He’d gotten so involved with his hosts, he’d forgotten the passage of time. The abrupt sound of the door buzzer startled everyone and sent both dogs tearing across the room to the front door. Ace sat up, disheveled and wide-eyed. Steve half-turned one way, then the other in an effort to see, but couldn’t turn far enough in either direction as Selene rose and made her way to the door.

“Dusk! Sable! Back! That’s it, back, back, back! Now sit! That’s good dogs! Wait. Wait!” Ace scrambled to his feet and tried to pull his clothes back into order as three locks turned and the door opened. She must have left the door ajar, because he could hear as her footsteps faded down the outer hall, and then her voice, “You’re Sergeant Barnes and…ah, Mister Wilson. Yes, he’s here. Please, come in.”

Steve had barely managed to lever himself to the edge of the couch, gritting his teeth and pressing his good hand against his damaged ribs, when Bucky and Sam moved into his line of sight. Bucky had a scabbed split in his lower lip, Sam a stitched cut above his left eyebrow, but both looked a great deal better than he imagined he must, if their expressions gave anything to go by. Bucky’s half-strangled, “Jesus, Stevie,” only confirmed it.

He managed a weak smile. “It’s not as bad as—”

“Oh no you don’t!” Selene broke in sharply to the sound of the closing door. “Ah-ah! You are not going to tell them it’s not as bad as it looks, because I am here to tell you gentlemen that he looks a hundred times better than he did when we peeled him out of the garden a few hours ago.”

She stepped up beside Sam with one hand on her hip, offering the other for a handshake. “I’m Selene Thomas, and that’s my son, Asa,” she said as she shook Sam’s hand, then Bucky’s.

“Call me Ace,” her son said as he stepped up to shake hands, too. “Everyone does.”

“Sam,” the medic agreed with a smile.

“You got it.” Bucky grinned. “I’m James, but everyone calls me Bucky.”

Selene’s other hand had found the corresponding hip. “The man has at least two ribs he’s probably cracked, that wrist is still a mess, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more than that. We stitched and bandaged him up as best we could, but he really needs a proper doctor and probably more than a few X-rays. I need just a moment to get his things together. Ace, honey, would you bring me one of the large grocery sacks?”

“Sure, Mom.”

They both bustled out of the room, leaving Sam and Bucky staring at each other, and then at Steve. “You’ve done it again, haven’t you, you lucky bastard?” Bucky finally muttered incredulously. “How the hell do you do that?”

Sam blinked, looking back and forth between them. “Uh, what, exactly?”

“He means find dames – uh, I mean women – like her and Peggy,” Steve answered, wondering if either of them would help him get to his feet before she returned. Deciding it’d be better to wait than ask, since Bucky hadn’t yet lit into him, he gave a cautious shrug. “I have no idea, Buck. I should probably mention, though, they both found me.”

Bucky considered that. “Huh. So they did.”

Selene came back into the room then, a big paper bag in hand and Ace right behind her. She stopped abruptly, though, and half-choked on a laugh. “Oh dear, I’m sorry. Sam, Bucky, is it all right if the dogs say hello? I’m afraid they’ll fly to pieces if they can’t.”

“Sure, Ma’am,” Bucky drawled, already turning toward the dogs. He liked them even better than Steve did, generally. Sam nodded his agreement and she chuckled.

“Oh no, please call me Selene. No Ma’am-ing. I’m too close to your ages for that.” She returned her attention to the dogs. “Dusk, Sable, good dogs! Okay, say hello!”

The canines burst into a frenzy of wriggling, wagging joy as they tumbled over each other to reach the new visitors. Sam wound up on his butt in moments, though Bucky managed to keep his feet, and they both laughed hard as they had their faces and hands washed by excited tongues. Steve found himself grinning pretty hard, too, though sitting up the way he had put him in a new world of hurt he didn’t want to add laughing to.

He blinked and looked up when a small hand landed gently on his shoulder. Selene stood right beside him, watching the chaos with amusement, the handles of the shopping bag in her other hand. The bag itself rested on the coffee table. After a moment, she patted his shoulder and called the dogs off, stepping smoothly around the small table. They bumbled into the kitchen, where Ace let them out into the garden.

She handed the bag over to Bucky, who took it with his metal hand and a smile. “Thanks for takin’ care of him, Ma—ah, Selene.”

“Tchah, you’re all more than welcome,” she answered with a shake of her head. “You spend a lot of time, energy, and pain in taking care of the whole city – the world, even. A little patching up and a good meal now and again is the least we can do. We’re happy to help. Here, I’ll get out of the way so you can help him up. I’d invite you to stay for coffee, but by the look of him, he’d be a lot happier with a doctor and some pain medication that’ll actually work for him. Maybe another time, hm?”

Steve couldn’t even argue, reflecting that she’d clearly developed the same distressing habit Peggy’d had: being right. Getting pulled to his feet hadn’t hurt quite that much in a very long time. In the end, it took all four of them, Sam and Bucky supporting him and Selene and Ace opening doors, to get him into the black Stark SUV they’d brought.

He even greyed out a little, at the end, and so missed thanking his hosts one last time and saying goodbye as the door closed him in. Sam got into the back seat beside him, while Bucky got in to drive. They had already gotten underway by the time Steve pulled himself together enough to talk.

“So everyone got home safe, right?” he asked a little vaguely.

“Yeah, Steve, everyone but you,” Sam assured him.

Bucky smacked the steering wheel with his right fist. “Dammit, Stevie, I can’t believe you got your ass kicked this badly again.” It came out in a growl. “And crash-landed in that dame’s yard. What is it with you?”

“She’s a lady, Buck, and she and her son probably saved my life.” Steve frowned at him. “They’re both artists, by the way. She wouldn’t let me go back out to look for you guys when I woke up, though. Got all indignant when I suggested it.”

“And you listened to her?” Sam asked, feigning shock. “Did you see any flying pigs today, Bucky?”

“Har-har.” Steve glowered at him. He’d started rambling a bit, he realized, but didn’t bother to stop himself. “Yes _,_ I listened. Obviously. I suppose she’s a little like Peggy, but I don’t think she’s as close as you think.”

His oldest friend made a soft, derisive sound through his nose. “Uh-huh. Of course you don’t. Was that an honest-to-God spinning wheel in the corner of that room, by the way?”

“Uh-huh. She even worked at it while I was there. That’s part of what she does. She’s a semi-professional fiber artist.” She had said she got paid for it, after all.

“Wow. Didn’t think anybody’d still bother with that, anymore. Fiber artist? That’s a thing?”

“It’s a little more common now than it would have been twenty or thirty years ago,” Sam told them. “They call themselves the Craft Movement, or—no, wait, the Maker Movement, I think. Anyway. People trying to slow down, do things in old ways, learn to appreciate life a little more, or something. I’m not really sure. Never paid it much attention.”

“Yeah, well, she ain’t all that slow.” Bucky moved on, clearly still irritated. “Don’t imagine you noticed the shotgun she had on the floor beside that chair at her wheel, did you, Stevie?”

Steve blinked. “I…” He hadn’t. Of course, he’d woken up on the couch, and hadn’t moved from it until they’d gotten there. “Huh. No. Not sure I could have, from the couch.”

“Oh, no, probably not.” The sniper shrugged, then glanced over his shoulder. “You mean you didn’t move from that spot the whole time you were there? Jeez, Stevie. Well, it was there. I noticed it right away. I also noticed that she stayed away from that whole half of the room when we got there. I’m thinkin’ she’s a lot more like Peggy than you think.”

Meaning she’d not only prepared to defend herself and her son from the creatures outside, but also from him if it had become necessary, and she had realized that Bucky and possibly Sam would see the weapon and feel uneasy if she went anywhere near it. Or, at least, she’d considered that they might. Had Ace even known about the shotgun? Could he use it? Why did he even wonder about these things?

“I didn’t notice the gun.” Sam sounded concerned. “Dude, that’s a little bit creepy. Creepy that you noticed, I mean, just sayin’. I did notice the way she limped, though, and how she’s just a shade too thin. Did you see the way her kid watched her? Like he’s worried. I dunno if she’s actually sick, but she’s probably not exactly well.”

Now, Steve really frowned. “She…didn’t eat very much dinner. Just kind of pushed it around on her plate. And I thought she looked like she hurt, but I figured maybe she got hurt dragging me out of the garden.”

Bucky chuckled. “Probably did, the size of you. She’s no bigger than you were back before Erskine got his hooks in you. Ace probably helped, though, and he’s already almost my size. So maybe not.”

He couldn’t refute that. Selene probably weighed more than he did, back then, but she certainly didn’t stand any taller than he had. Had he seen pain lines around her eyes, or were they laugh lines? He hadn’t even asked for her last name, only knew it because she’d used it to introduce herself to Sam and Bucky. He knew what she did, and that she saw more clearly than a lot of people he’d encountered in his life, but he didn’t know her. Not really. And he hadn’t noticed or asked. She’d certainly been perfectly friendly, but…had he just made a new friend?

He didn’t know, but he hoped.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Apologies for the formatting. I'm still figuring out how the site works!)

* * *

“Sooooooo…” Tony opened from the doorway of the common kitchen in Avengers Tower. “Your heroine. Selene Thomas.”

Steve suppressed a sigh and turned with his lunch and a glass of milk in hand. “Please tell me you didn’t go digging.”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t?” The engineer sounded offended. “Come on, she picked you up out of her garden and didn’t immediately post a dozen selfies with your unconscious mug. So what’s her game? I’m just looking out for my team, Capsicle.”

“Uh-huh.” He carried his food to the table. “A standard background check is plenty. That’s why it’s standard, isn’t it? Not everyone has a ‘game’, Stark. Some people are actually just decent human beings.”

The billionaire paused halfway to the coffee pot to turn and stare at him. “I know you haven’t been in this century more than two or three years, but you have lived in New York, right?”

The question caught him with a mouthful, and he had to swallow before he could answer. “Nine years, Tony, and you know I have. Most of my life, and I know Brooklyn. There are good people not entirely wrapped up in themselves all over. What’s your point?”

“Idealists.” Tony shook his head and proceeded to the coffee machine. “My point is, your girlfriend looks squeaky-clean. She’s not a Hydra operative, doesn’t have any connections to AIM that I can find, and I don’t see any compromised family. Her ex-husband’s a piece of work, but he doesn’t raise any red flags, either.”

This part of being a very public figure, Steve hated. He gritted his teeth, reminded himself that yes, they really did have to check, and nodded. “Good to know.”

“Oh, here.” The engineer pulled a full cup of coffee out of the machine and turned, digging in his pocket with his free hand. A moment later, he set a new Starkphone on the table. “All set up. I’ll add the new transponder to your new-and-improved uniform when it’s done. I’ve never seen anything shred kevlar the way that monster did.”

Steve picked the phone up and pocketed it without looking at it. Just to keep the conversation from circling back to places he didn’t want to go, he asked, “What’s the new one made of?”

“Kevlar plates in the important places and carbon fiber mesh all over,” the billionaire answered absently. “Theoretically, much less puncture- and shred-prone. I don’t know how you keep finding new ways to destroy equipment. Honestly.”

“To be fair, you packed that bomb with about twice the necessary explosive,” Steve pointed out. “Docs tell me the uniform shredded that way because of the shrapnel, and it would have been me if I hadn’t worn it. So the old uniform did pretty well.”

“Yeah, well, the next one’ll do better.” Tony shook his head, looking baffled. “You really don’t want to know about your girlfriend’s very smutty romance novel series?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” He answered stiffly, uncomfortable with the topic and fighting not to show his irritation. Or pay attention to anything else he’d said.

“Why not? I mean, I know you’ve got Buckaroo and all, but this is the Twenty-First Century, Cap! Nowadays, you can have a boyfriend and a girlfriend, and they can even know about each other! If they do, sometimes they’ll even—”

“No, Tony.” He interrupted before he got Tony’s version of the Sex Talk. Again. “I’d rather get to know her myself, without your ‘help’. I can ask her that stuff.”

“She writes smutty romance novels?” Natasha asked as she glided into the kitchen, going straight to the refrigerator. She wore a tee-shirt and workout shorts, with a towel hung around her neck, so she must have just come from the gym.

“Under one of her pseudonyms, she does,” Tony answered, turning gleefully. “It’s an urban supernatural thing about a werewolf in Japan.”

Nat paused, half-turning to look over her shoulder. “I think I’ve read that one, actually. The ‘Passion Spirit’ series? They’re really good.”

“That’s the one. And way more than I wanted to know.” Tony tilted his head in a gesture that said he’d already run with it, mentally. “She’s got at least two more under another pseudonym, not quite as popular. She uses a third nom de plume for a more mainstream fantasy series – elves and dwarves or something.”

He took an appreciative gulp of his coffee. “And she runs a couple blogs, but only one under her own name. Don’t worry, Grandpa, she hasn’t written about saving your ass. Not yet, anyway. I’ll let you know if that changes. I gave the blogs a skim, and the really interesting thing is—”

Steve shook his head. “Tony, for cryin’ out loud, stop. This is not stuff I want to hear from you. You said she passed the background check. That’s all I need to know right now.”

The billionaire tilted his head, then grinned slyly over the rim of his mug. “Okay, okay. I get it! You want to get to know her directly. Good call, Cap, using all this as jumping-off to ‘get to know’ her. That’s smart. No wonder you’re the strate—”

“Jesus, it’s not like that.” He got abruptly to his feet, scooping his half-full plate up, and turned toward the door.

“You sure? Because it sure seemed like she got your full attention, even when you knew your team was still out there in the thick of it.” The retort stopped him cold in the doorway, even as the snarky engineer continued. “I mean, the Buckmeister got pissy as hell, which we all know means he was beside himself worried about you. For all we knew, you were dead in a ditch. Crater. Whatever.”

He fought to control his immediate urge to turn around and take the bait. Flexing his shoulders, trying to stretch a little of the tension out of them, he took a deep breath and let it out before he responded. “I knew I’d taken the big monster out. When I checked comms, everything was down. With the injuries and no armor, it didn’t make sense to go back into an active fight as I was. I’d have been a liability, and I had faith in my team. Are you suggesting I shouldn’t?”

He just couldn’t resist the small jab.

Being himself, Stark couldn’t leave it, either. “Seen you stay in a fight with a whole lot more injury, is all I’m saying. Never known destroyed equipment to stop you, either. So I figure, you must’ve found something more interesting to do with your time. And who could blame you, really? I mean, she’s not really my type, but I could see the appeal. If I squint.”

His free hand closed into a fist at his side. That was just uncalled-for. “I was already out of the fight. Without comms—” It struck him then, just how absurd the conversation had become. He shook his head. “No, you know what? I’m not doing this again, Stark. Especially if you’re going to pick at a woman who did nothing but good and isn’t even here to defend herself. That’s beneath you. If you want to know anything else, you can read my after-action report. You’re supposed to read them, anyway.”

And he walked away. He’d been working on that with a therapist, once the new SHIELD had approved one and continuing after they’d confirmed the man didn’t have any affiliation with Hydra. Letting go. Learning to see when the fight was worth the cost. Understanding that walking away wouldn’t hurt anything. Bucky would have been proud.

Behind him, he heard a soft impact. “Ow! Ah, hot-hot-hot! What was that for, Red? I’m not wrong!”

The elevator arrived, and Steve got into the car without waiting to hear Nat’s reply. The door closed before he even considered where he would go. Usually, when he’d gotten this irritated, he’d go to the gym and pound the stuffing out of a few heavy bags.

This time, though, he had the sneaking suspicion that Tony would probably follow him, and he had no interest in dealing with the man for any reason for at least the rest of the day. Besides, his injuries still needed to heal – they’d gotten to about eighty percent by his morning checkup today, but that meant still twenty percent injured and therefore vulnerable.

So. The gym in the Tower remained out of the question, but he’d kept up his membership at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn…he’d have to be careful, baby the wrist a bit, but maybe he could return the clothing Selene had sent him home in, now that it had been laundered and brought back to him. A ride on his Harley would probably help his mood some, too.

Decided, he returned to his floor long enough to cover and deposit his half-eaten lunch in the refrigerator, throw the borrowed clothes into his gym bag, and catch up the case that held his shield. He’d learned not to go anywhere without it, if he could help it. Things had a way of happening while he was out, and it helped if he at least had a weapon to defend himself with. Back into the elevator, down to the team’s private garage, and he stowed gym bag and shield case in the saddlebags on his bike. Within ten minutes after Tony’d driven him out of the communal kitchen, he pulled out of the garage and onto the streets of Manhattan, headed south toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

Taking the FDR gave him a chance to look over the damage the creatures had done to his home borough. He’d seen the pictures and satellite maps over the three days since the attack, but they weren’t the same as seeing it with his own eyes. To his surprise, the worst damage from the mother-creature had somehow been confined to a fifty-foot swathe running due east-by-southeast from the north end of the old Navy Yard.

He would probably drive through some of it, more if the smaller creatures had managed any significant damage, but there really hadn’t been too much destruction. It had seemed…so much more dangerous, when he’d been caught up in the middle of the fight. Shaking his head, he swung back onto his bike and got going again.

For a little extra on his membership fee every year, Gleason’s kept a reinforced room with specially-fortified equipment ready for his use. Famous as it had become, the ownership and most of the trainers could be counted on to run interference with the media who came in daily to catch glimpses of its more well-known members.

He supposed he ought to know most of the big names that trained there, but he didn’t much care to, and everyone seemed willing to extend him the same courtesy whenever he went in. Which wasn’t often, since he’d moved into the Tower. Today, though, he found himself glad of it. He didn’t have the patience to be polite to nosy reporters and their flash-happy photographers.

He also didn’t want to have to explain the more visible of his still-healing injuries. The stitches had all been removed, but the dark lines of the scars hadn’t yet faded. The fight had been all over the news, thanks to the ubiquitous news helicopters, but so far no one seemed to have caught what happened to him after the explosion and he wanted to keep it that way. He’d already turned down several requests for post-monster interviews. So he changed in the locker room and headed for his private room as quickly as he could. Thankfully, no one tried to stop him.

He didn’t really know for certain how long he pummeled the heavy bag, working mostly his left and babying the right, or how many bags he’d already destroyed. Eventually, a pair of hands, one metal and one flesh, appeared on either side of the bag and the whole thing quit swinging. He even hit it a few more times before the change actually registered. One more smack, and he realized he’d long since beaten his anger out through his fists. And worked up a considerable sweat. Breathing hard, he reached out and placed one taped hand against the bag.

“Hi, Buck.”

“Hey, pal.” The sniper shifted out from behind the bag, watching him closely. “FRIDAY played it back for us. Tony’s an ass.”

“He is,” Steve panted. “I suppose he thinks he means well by it, though.”

“Pretty sure he just likes to wind you up. You’ve never really snapped with him, have you?”

He went over to the bench where he’d left his bag and dug a bottle of water out. “Not really. Except for the thing over the Accords a while back. Even then, that wasn’t personal, or even face to face for the most part. Just the principle of the thing. This…” He gestured with the bottle cap, taking a long drink.

“He made this one personal.”

“Sam once told me it’s a warped response to wanting to protect his friends.”

“Friends who don’t actually need it, and didn’t ask for his help, either.”

“He’s never been particularly good at asking permission.”

“So I’ll say it again: Tony’s an ass.”

“Pretty much.”

They settled on the bench and fell silent for a few minutes while Steve got his breathing back under control and his heart rate returned to normal. Finally, Bucky shifted. “How you doin’?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t want to beat Tony to a pulp anymore, anyway.” He dug into the bag at his side and pulled a part of the borrowed clothes out. “Figured I’d return these to Selene and see how they’re doin’, since I’m here.”

“Yeah, okay. Mind some company?”

“Nope.” He gestured at the heavy bag. “Did you want to go a few rounds before we leave?”

“Nah, I didn’t bring anything to change into.”

“Bring your bike?”

“Of course.”

“Wanna stop for food before we head to Selene’s? I didn’t really eat before I left the Tower.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“So who else saw the recording of that mess? You said ‘us’.”

“Oh, Sam. Nat just swatted The Ass upside the back of his head and gave him her eyebrow-lift right after you took off. The one that says, ‘wow, you’re a huge dick’ without her having to say a word. I don’t think she realized right away that Tony’d started pissing you off. Sam, though.” Bucky chuckled a little. “Tony’d already run off, but Sam got started up to the lab to read him the riot act almost before FRIDAY stopped the recording. I’d have liked to see it, but I decided I should come find you. Let Sam beat some sense into him.”

“I don’t think that’s even possible.” Steve grimaced. He shook his empty water bottle. “I’ll believe it when I see it, anyway. I can work with the man, no problem. He’s actually shaped up to be a decent teammate, in spite of everything. But I’m…not really sure living in his building is such a good idea, anymore. Between his personality and all the crap that went down during Sokovia and the Accords…I just…”

Bucky reached out, the fingers of his right hand curling warm against Steve’s bicep just above his elbow. “Hey.” He waited for their eyes to meet. “If you wanna move out, even part time, I’m right there with you. We don’t have to live there in order to work with them. It’s convenient, but I’ve wondered for a while if it’d be better to have a chance at some daily downtime away from everyone else. Sam’s said pretty much the same thing about it.”

He blinked. “Really?”

“Yep. He’s even looked at a few places in Hell’s Kitchen and the Lower East Side.”

Steve considered this for a long moment while he finished his water. “Maybe we should look, too.” He got to his feet. “I’ll go shower and get dressed. Meet you in the garage?”

“Sure.” He turned to go, surprised when Bucky caught his hand and tugged him back. “Love you, punk.”

He chuckled. “Love you too, jerk.”

When he trotted into the garage fifteen minutes later, he did so without being accosted by any of the media he knew had been inside the gym. He felt in a much better frame of mind than he had on arrival, and he threw a grin at Bucky as he tossed his leg over his bike. “Ready?”

His answering grin had all the cockiness of Bucky before the War. “When have I ever not been ready to chase your ass all over Brooklyn?” he shot back.

Steve laughed and stuffed his head into his helmet, hitting the connect button on their custom comm system and revving the Harley to life even before the HUD came up on his helmet’s visor. He and Bucky had gone in on a set of these helmets and their distinctly high-tech connectivity on their own, without even consulting Tony. It’d offended the engineer, who’d gone into a frenzy of helmet-related designing the minute he’d seen them, but they’d been worth their weight in gold to the two super-soldiers-out-of-time.

With them, they could hold a normal conversation while riding down a highway or weaving through New York traffic, and the built-in GPS had proved almost as good as FRIDAY. He used it, now, tearing out of the garage and into the aforementioned traffic as the path came up on the display inside his visor.

“Huh, yeah, I thought so,” he commented to Bucky, who’d left the garage behind him in a blare of protesting car horns. “We’re gonna cross right through the damage the Porcupine and her brood made.”

“Why would you think not? You took her down just a half-block north of Selene’s place, after all.”

“Yeah, I know. I wanted to see how bad the mess is, though.”

“You can’t clean everything up, fix it all yourself, Stevie.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It seemed bigger than what I saw from the FDR on my way down, at least while we were in the middle of it. I just want to see, that’s all.”

“Okay, okay. We’ll have a look when we get to it, all right?  
“I’d’ve stopped whether you did or not.”

“…punk.”

“Jerk.”

They stopped at a corner diner for a quick meal to go, avoiding recognition with the use of ball caps, a bit of a slouch for Steve, a holographic sleeve for Bucky, and the heavy use of their native-born Brooklyn accents. New Yorkers tended not to really look each other in the face, anyway, so it didn’t take much. They ate in the parking lot, leaning against their bikes, and wasted no time swinging back into their saddles as soon as they’d finished.

Broken, shredded trees, a few crumbled building-corners and storefronts, and a whole lot of torn-up asphalt provided most of the evidence of the creatures’ passage through the streets of Brooklyn. Some cars had gotten stomped or riddled with scales. Virtually every ground-floor window, commercial and residential, had shattered and been boarded up. Buildings, fences, trees, and intersections had all received at least a scattering of the scales, too.

They didn’t wind up stopping, except where detours and traffic required, though Steve had to fight with himself a time or two when they rolled past what looked like block cleanup crews composed mostly of actual residents. He wound up having to find something else to think about, or he would have stopped to help and they’d never make it to Selene’s.

“Sam should have a look at Cobble Hill,” he suggested, mostly to distract himself.

Bucky chuckled. “That’s what I told him. He said he’d look.”

“When was that?”

“Couple days ago, I think. After Mama Porcupine made this mess. You know, Bed-Stuy wouldn’t be bad, either. For Sam or us.”

“All this time in this century, and I still have trouble remembering how all the neighborhoods have changed. I almost said we couldn’t afford Bed-Stuy.”

Bucky actually laughed at that. “Well, back when we first looked for an apartment together, we couldn’t have. Not in Thirty-Seven. I’d almost say that now, we can’t afford whatever’s replaced our old place up from where the docks used to be. Except we aren’t the same as we were, then, either. We can afford pretty much anything we want, wherever we want.”

“I refuse to live in what they’re calling DUMBO, now,” Steve answered indignantly. “First, that’s a stupid name. I don’t care that it’s an acronym. And second, property values over there are insane. I’d prefer Bed-Stuy to that, now.”

“Roger that. It’d be like living in the Tower, only worse because it’d be our own damned fault!”

It’d remained unseasonably warm, given that they’d entered into what should have been autumn. Steve was glad he hadn’t bothered to grab a jacket on his way out, earlier. He vaguely recalled the morning news saying something about a record-breaking heatwave, so it didn’t surprise him too much when they rolled up in front of Selene’s building to find every window of her ground-floor apartment thrown wide open.

It just meant she must be home. He retrieved the borrowed clothes and the shield case from his saddlebags, tucked his helmet under his arm, and walked with Bucky up to the door. They both clearly heard the buzzer sounding inside through the open windows.

They received no answer.

“Maybe she didn’t hear it?” Bucky murmured. “It’s probably too early for Ace to be home from school, right?”

“I think so…” Steve agreed vaguely, listening for any sounds of movement in the apartment. What he heard worried him a little: distressed canine whines. He stepped down off the stoop into the little postage-stamp of grass that passed for a front yard, crossing to kneel and peer through the open windows. “Hit the buzzer again, Buck.”

It sounded quite clearly, and Dusk and Sable darted, whining, into the front room. Immediately, though, they both wheeled and darted back out of sight. Dusk reappeared a moment later, barked once sharply, and vanished again. Steve got back to his feet and headed for the sidewalk. “I think something’s wrong. I’m going around back.”

“On your six!”

The back garden didn’t have a gate, but an eight-foot wall hadn’t been much of an obstacle to either of them in a very long time. They landed on the grass within a half-beat of each other and started toward the open glass doors. Dusk and Sable came charging out of the kitchen, barking and snarling viciously. They stopped abruptly in the doorway with their hair still up and lips curled. Their tails wagged uncertainly.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys.” Steve murmured soothingly to them, setting the shield case and his helmet in a brick planter with the clothing tucked inside it. Cautiously, he held his hands out to the canines as he tried to see into the darkened kitchen. The fact that he looked indoors from outside on a bright, sunny day probably accounted for some of the darkness in that room, but it seemed a little too dark. He couldn’t see anything. “Easy, guys, easy. Remember me?”

He edged closer, one hand outstretched to each dog. They didn’t move, forward or back, but they also didn’t really relax until he got close enough to ease one hand alongside each bristling head. It took a couple of strokes, but Dusk finally let him smooth his fur down, and Sable followed his lead. “Good boy, Dusk. Good girl, Sable. Where’s Selene, guys?”

To his surprise, Dusk nosed his hand, whined piteously, and turned to head back into the apartment. The dog paused, turned to look over his shoulder for a moment, and then went inside. Sable whined and trailed after him. Steve glanced at Bucky, frowning, and followed.

“Selene?” he called as soon as he stepped into the kitchen. “Are you here? I’m sorry we came in the back, but—Selene!”

She lay collapsed in a heap on the floor of the darkened hallway, just short of being visible from the windows in either the living room or kitchen. The dogs had seated themselves beside her outstretched hand, and Sable whined and nudged her limp fingers as Steve finally saw her. An empty plastic water bottle lay not far from that hand.

Steve didn’t even register crossing the kitchen to kneel beside her and reach for her wrist to feel for a pulse. The very slow, steady beat under his fingertips settled him a little, and he realized that her chest expanded and contracted rhythmically, too. So far, so good, except for the unconsciousness.

“Is she hurt?” Bucky asked, and the tension in his voice came as a surprise.

He checked, just a quick scan. “I don’t see anything…”

“Let’s get her up off the floor, then. The lights won’t come on.”

Steve hadn’t heard him trying the switch. Carefully, he gathered her up and lifted. She seemed painfully light, even for her small size. Bucky and the dogs followed him into the living room, where he deposited her on the couch, sweeping the long, loose fall of her hair aside so its tips brushed the floor. She stirred a little as he set her down.

“Selene?” he tried. “Hey, can you wake up a little? Selene?”

“Nnn…” The sound came through faintly.

“I’ll get a wet cloth,” Bucky murmured. He disappeared into the kitchen. The sound of water running followed, and he returned a moment later, cloth in hand. He also carried a large glass of water he set down on the little coffee table. “She breathing okay? What about her heart?”

“I don’t…” He lifted her hand again, checking the pulse at her wrist and then gently chafing it between his two hands. He reached for the cloth after a moment and laid it gently across her forehead, though she didn’t seem feverish at all. “They both seem fine. Selene?”

“Mmn… Warm…” she breathed, eyelids fluttering. A moment later, they opened, and took a moment to focus. “I… Nnn… Steve?” Her dark gaze flicked over his shoulder. “Bu…cky? What…?”

“You didn’t answer your door.” Bucky spoke gently, moving to the end of the couch where she could see him without needing to crane her neck.  
“But all the windows were open, and we could hear the dogs,” Steve added. “We got worried and came over the back wall.”

“Found you on the floor in the hall with the dogs,” Bucky concluded. “Do you need somethin’? Medicine?”

“Oh.” She groaned, dragging the wet cloth down over her face for a moment. It muffled her next words. “No, no. Wow, this is so embarrassing.” Letting the towel puddle across her throat, she eyed them both a little wryly.

“I’m so sorry. I—okay, ugh, long story short. Um. I have Multiple Sclerosis. It’s made me very heat-sensitive, over the years. We keep it cool enough in here, it’s normally not too big a problem. But today’s hot, and I don’t know if it happened deliberately or not, but the power’s out. Maybe part of the cleanup.”

“Explains why you opened the windows instead of usin’ the cooler,” Bucky commented, eyeing the vents around the room.

She nodded and tried to sit up but couldn’t seem to make her arms work properly. Steve helped, recognizing the irritated expression that crossed her features from long-ago familiarity with something like her situation.

“Thank you.” She panted once they had her propped against the arm of the couch. “I’m sorry. I’ve never actually passed out, before. It’s just…I was working, and I got caught up. Didn’t notice right away when I started heating up. Then I started feeling woozy, and I’d gotten up to deal with it—cold drink, cool cloths—and…I don’t remember anything else. I’m glad you two came by. Thank you for your help.”

Bucky shifted. “Cold… Do you have ice in the box?”

“Yes. I— There should be some bottled water in the fridge, too. It hasn’t been opened since the power went out. I think it should all still be cold enough.”

The sniper caught up the water glass and started moving almost before she’d finished speaking. Steve settled on the other end of the couch, still concerned. “Is there anything else we can do? When does Ace get home?”

“Nothing else, unfortunately.” She shook her head, fiddling with the hem of her tee shirt as ice rattled in the next room. “The MS keeps my brain from transmitting signals as well as it should. Doc tells me I get like this when I’m too warm because the heat expands things a little, makes it that much harder for signals to get across. I have a couple cooling vests and a neck wrap I use when I absolutely have to be out in the heat, but it’s never happened like this before. I’ll have to call her about it. I’ve never actually blacked out or fallen.”

She paused as Bucky returned with cold water, a bottle in one hand and the glass with ice water in the other, accepting the bottle with a grateful smile. She took a long drink, looking more than a little wilted, then dabbed her face with the damp towel. “Ace has his internship at Carnegie, today. He’ll be out late. Until after ten.”

Steve blinked. “He’s got an internship at Carnegie Hall?”

“Isn’t he still in high school?” Bucky chimed in as he set the glass back on the table.

“Yes, and yes.” She grinned. The expression looked a little weak, but they could see the pride in her eyes as she took another drink. “He’s a Junior at Murrow High School in their Vocal Music program, and the Tony Bennett Foundation accepted him for a paid internship at Carnegie Hall for this academic year. It’s not much money, but he’ll learn a lot just being there. He’s been so excited about it.”

Bucky looked intrigued. “Vocal Music? Like, group stuff? What does he sing?”

“A little of everything.” Steve answered him with a grin. “I got to hear him practicing, the other day. He’s really good, Buck. He sang in English, German, French, and Italian, and he sounded great.”

He looked back at Selene. “Bucky’s always loved music. Dancing to it, mostly, but our radio was always on, if he was home. Still is, actually.”

She turned interested eyes on the sniper, who actually colored faintly. “So what are your favorites, then?”

That sparked a conversation that covered all their musical tastes, then moved on to impressions of modern popular culture as compared to what Bucky and Steve had grown up with. Selene seemed to perk up a little more with every passing minute as she finished first the bottled water, then the ice water. By the time the refrigerator announced with its sudden humming that the power had been restored, she seemed almost normally animated – and very interested in the history the two super-soldiers had lived through.

“I’m so sorry if I’m being too nosy,” she apologized as they moved around the apartment, closing windows and doors when the air conditioning kicked on. “I’m…sort of a ridiculous history buff, and other than my grandfather, you two are the first I’ve ever had opportunity to talk to who actually saw all this. I’ve been all over the country, but never outside of it. The closest I can get to seeing these things is by reading about them, but you can only get so much from books, you know?”

Steve did know. Most of the books he’d read since waking up told only a partial story, sanitized and interpreted with varying degrees of accuracy. It only surprised him that she’d given it any consideration. Most people didn’t. They read everything they could find on a subject – him, or him and Bucky, usually – and considered themselves experts on it.

The thing he always found, though, was that they didn’t really know. By believing that they understood, a lot of people prevented themselves from gaining a true understanding. He’d watched it happen time and time again.

Some things about a place, a person, an event, almost had to be experienced to be really understood. He encountered that problem in his art all the time, the difficulty of capturing not just the sight of a thing, but the sense of it. The scents and sounds around it, the feel of the air, the general background muddle that made up so much of the perception of the thing, and yet proved so impossible to capture with a mere static image.

He supposed she must have encountered the same trouble with her writing. Or perhaps her fiber arts, though how she could convey an idea using colored yarn, he didn’t really know. It had never occurred to him to think of what amounted to little more than loops of string as “art”, before.

“Nah, you aren’t bein’ nosy.” Bucky waved her apology off as they settled around her kitchen table with drinks. “The idiots from the Times, the Bugle, or the Post, they’re nosy, and mostly they don’t want to talk about this stuff. That’s one thing I can’t get used to, way it is now. How they seem to think they’ve got a right to know who’s makin’ time with who, like it makes any difference to how we do what we do.”

“This might be the first time I’ve had a chance to just talk about back then,” Steve agreed. “At least, without an academic using a recorder to take down everything I say and arguing about it like they know better than a guy that was there.”

Selene’s eyes widened. “They do not! Seriously?”

“Oh, they do.” He shook his head ruefully. “It’s probably partly because a lot of what we did with the Howlies is either still classified, or so deeply buried under all the stuff declassified first that nobody even knows to go looking for it. I filed a lot of reports, like every unit CO ever, but probably ninety percent of what I filed didn’t see open daylight for at least fifty years.”

“Point is, we mostly don’t get to talk about back then with anyone interested in hearing it except each other,” Bucky concluded. “And we both mostly remember exactly the same things. But you said you talked to your grandfather. Did he serve?”

She smiled. “After a fashion. You see, he was above the draft age. He volunteered, but they wouldn’t take him. The recruiting officer at the time kept turning him down because he knew he had a wife and little ones at home, and more on the way. He was a longshoreman in San Pedro, California, at the time, so he served here at home as part of the Civilian Patrol, and then with the Coast Guard during the later part of the war. He never saw any combat action, though. Just patrolling the California coast.”

“Way I hear it, those guys did important jobs, too,” the sniper commented. “Made sure we all had somethin’ to come back to, even if some of us took longer than others.”

“Hitler had U-Boats all up and down the eastern seaboard.” Steve nodded his agreement. “At the time, we couldn’t know the Japanese didn’t have the same plans in the West. I can imagine how he felt, though, wanting to be useful and always getting turned away.”

“I suppose you can,” she chuckled, “though Grandpa was maybe as much concerned with how other people would think of him. He was, like all the men involved in that war, only human, and raised Mexican Catholic besides. The ethnic culture is much concerned with manliness. Machismo has always struck me as slightly ridiculous, given the things it seems to drive people to do.”

Steve exchanged a grin with Bucky, thinking of Hodges and how Peggy had laid him out for his overactive mouth back in the SSR’s version of Basic.

“There was a lot of it over there.” Steve shrugged. “If I’m honest, though, I think guys used it as a way to hide being afraid. We spent a lot of time afraid. After the planning, before starting an op, we usually had a lot of time to sit around waiting.”

He sighed. “That gives you a lot of time to think, and thinking means you imagine what might happen, what could go wrong, what you might do wrong. I did a lot of worrying about whether the plans I’d made would bring everyone back safely, or if something I missed would get someone – a friend – killed. You had to find a way to go on, even feeling like that, and you couldn’t let anyone else know what was going on in your head. Officer or plain enlisted man, it just wasn’t done. So I think a lot of guys put up that front.”

“And it meant a lot of men came home with PTSD – you called it shell shock or battle fatigue, right?” She waited for their nods of confirmation before continuing. “A lot of those guys came home traumatized, unwilling to let anyone know about the trouble they had leaving the battlefield on the battlefield, and afraid that their experiences had changed them so badly they weren’t fit for humanity, let alone the homes and families they’d left behind. I’ve not looked into the suicide rates for returned World War Two veterans, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out they were worse than what we have now, and that’s still way too many. Which says nothing about the substance abuse and violence numbers, either. And then, there’s the two of you.”

She fixed them with an entirely too knowing look, but it held kindness and a heavy leavening of sympathy without sliding into anything like pity. “Between you, you’ve been through worse than maybe anyone on the entire planet, forced to fight every time you turned around, constantly besieged by the new, the bizarre, the entirely uncanny, used and frankly abused. You’d have every right to want nothing to do with any of the rest of us, and I couldn’t blame you if you ran off to a hermitage somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness. Yet here you sit, ranked among the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, drinking sodas with a disabled divorcee you only met a few days ago.”

And yes, her eyes definitely held admiration. It made Steve unaccountably embarrassed. He could feel his cheeks warming. Bucky heard the rest of what she said, though, and frowned faintly.

“Disabled?” He almost sounded offended.

Her smile tightened a little, the corners of her eyes creasing just slightly. “The MS, mostly. It’s the relapsing-remitting form, so I have periods when I feel good, and times when I’m pretty bad. I spent a couple years walking with a cane, and most of one year in a wheelchair.”

“It’s all improved some with treatment, but I have a whole suite of medical things that affect it and are affected by it. I’ve had Diabetes and Fibromyalgia longer than the MS, but between all three…” She shrugged, looking weary and resigned. Steve remembered that feeling. “It’s nearly impossible for me to hold down a traditional job, and fairly difficult to lead a life anyone would call normal. Uncle Sam calls that ‘disabled’, so the world considers me with pity.”

Steve frowned. “But that’s not…” He trailed off, unsure what he wanted to say.

“No, it’s not, and I don’t really see it that way.” She seemed to catch his drift, anyway. “There are things I can’t do anymore, but there’s quite a bit more I can still do. That was partly how I got into the fiber art.”

“Is that what you were working on, this morning?” Bucky asked.

“Every day the light’s good, I’m in my workroom.” Her smile brightened her whole face, and if he hadn’t known it, Steve would never have thought they’d found her collapsed on the floor less than two hours before. “Would you like to see?”

“I’d love to.” Steve found himself surprised at his own eagerness. He figured it probably had to do with seeing an entirely new art form he’d never considered before. Art had always been a weakness, for him.

Bucky eyed him knowingly as they rose to follow her, tossing him a silent laugh that had him bristling. She didn’t lead them very far along the hallway, though, so he didn’t have much opportunity to respond. They passed the open door of a neat bathroom, and the next door opened onto a large, brightly-lit room awash in color.

Last through the doorway, Steve came to an abrupt halt in the opening, blinking in stunned amazement. An open closet across the room held built-in shelving stuffed full of color-coordinated yarns of all kinds, in thicknesses and textures he’d never even thought of in relation to “yarn”. In his experience, yarn meant utility: warm socks, gloves, hats, sweaters, blankets, things to keep him warm against the winters that seemed determined to kill him when he was small and always sick. It meant watching his mother or Missus Barnes sitting beside the radio, knitting while they listened to the program. Yarn held good memories for him, but…

This room seemed so much more than that. It held warmth, certainly, but also a kind of muted energy, a cheerful serenity. Tapestries of various sizes – real, honest tapestries – hung on one wall, floor to ceiling. Some appeared almost like painted canvases, simple swathes of color and texture that evoked everything from rage and sorrow to the gentle colors of a seascape or a warm sunset. Others showed actual pictures, of forests and farmland, cityscapes and bucolic towns.

The wall beside the door held what must be tools, made of wood and plastic, metal and what looked like bone, pegged frames and other things he couldn’t even begin to identify. A sewing machine stood on a worktable against the fourth wall, beneath large picture windows that bathed the room in sunlight, surrounded by scraps of cloth and other sewing implements. In the middle of the floor, a large loom took up a great deal of space. Selene moved to stand beside the sewing machine, beckoning them into the room.

Bucky, too, seemed awed. He stared at the walls, moving to the nearest and even lifting a hand toward a bit of blue-green tapestry that glittered in the light, though he didn’t actually touch. “You…made all these?” he asked with the reverent tones he used when Steve dragged him into museums.

“Every one,” Selene answered with a gentle smile. Her eyes roamed over the wall. “They’re my sales stock. Most of it, anyway. I have some tucked away, ready for transport. I’ll probably take them all to the farmer’s market at the park in a few weeks, if I feel well enough and Ace has time to help me.”

Steve finally moved into the room, threading his fingers together to keep his hands from straying to the textured bits of cloth. Now, he understood. This couldn’t be called anything but art. “Do you spin the yarn for all this?”

“Good grief, no, I’d never do anything else, including eat.” She sounded amused. “No, I spin some of it, and even dye some, but there’s a lot I’ve bought, too. I know a few ladies who just dye and spin, then sell the yarn in skeins. I buy from them, sometimes even commission particular fibers or colors. There’s no way I could spin everything I use myself, though. You can touch, by the way. It won’t hurt anything, and most of them are meant to be touched. That’s why I put the textured yarns in. I want people to experience my pieces with all their senses.”

She beckoned them in beside her then and gestured toward the loom. “This is what I was working on this morning. It’ll be a blanket. I just had the inspiration and got the loom warped yesterday, so it’s not very far along, but you can sort of see the idea, now.”

The loom had been strung with vivid color, azures and silvers, black and crimson, golds shading into browns. The threads that had begun to fill in the space between appeared the same colors, but lighter shades, keeping the resultant cloth from appearing too heavy. Already, they formed a striking pattern, something in the weave calling first one set of colors into prominence, then the next. Steve tried to follow the lines of color, could almost see the pattern…but it seemed impossibly complex, and he quickly gave it up. The effect, though, appeared nothing less than beautiful.

He stepped back to prevent himself from touching, unsure whether he could disturb a work in progress by doing so, and leaned a hip against the table under the windows. “It’s beautiful, Selene. I don’t…even have words for all this.” He gestured helplessly, encompassing the wall, the loom, the whole room.

“Not even an hour ago, I wondered how bits of yarn or string could be called art. My mother used to use yarn to make things, but they were practical things, useful in winter or around the house, but not much else. This…it’s incredible. I’ve never seen art like this, but I can’t call it anything else. I’m just amazed.”

She colored prettily, ducking her head slightly. “Thank you, Steve, but I didn’t bring the two of you in here for compliments. I just…” Her fingers glided over the freshly-woven strands of the blanket on the loom.

After a moment, she sighed softly, the sound a faintly huffed half-chuckle. “I thought you’d like to see. See something that’s at least a little familiar, used to make something good in this world. You’ve both seen so much ugliness. But this…this, and things like it in all the places of the world where you’ve gone to help, is a familiar good, beauty you helped to save.”

She gestured at the room around them. “This probably wouldn’t still be here if you hadn’t come to face those monsters, the other day. I might not be here to make it, if you hadn’t. Or Ace, and his music.”

Her cheeks remained a faint pink. “The two of you, and what you’ve been through to get here and do the things you’re doing now. You matter. I just…don’t think people say it enough. So I figured I’d try.”

Half-stunned by her words on top of the work she shared so freely, Steve caught Bucky’s gaze. His eyes held something…maybe not new, exactly, but something that hadn’t been there in a long time. They often received thanks for the things they did, and just as often caught hell in the aftermath for the destruction that unfortunately often accompanied their work. Families of those they saved sang their praises, families of those they couldn’t get to in time railed at their failings.

Yet everyone simply expected them to show up the next time disaster struck. That he could recall, no one had ever acknowledged that they had chosen to turn out, nor that they could at any time choose not to respond. They wouldn’t, that wasn’t who they were, but they could.

While people might consider it implicit that their choices to help, to intervene, made a difference in the world, no one had ever actually said so. Selene had, though, and people like her made up a lot of the reason they chose the way they did.

Bucky would say he only fought because Steve did, but Steve knew different. Especially since breaking free of Hydra, Bucky didn’t really believe in himself, anymore. Yet Steve knew him for a good man who wanted to do the right thing, too, and now…

“Thank you,” the sniper murmured, just barely audible to someone without their enhanced hearing. His cheeks had actually colored, just a little, but his eyes held what might be called ‘pride’ for the first time in decades. He also wore a grin Steve couldn’t help but return, and then turn on the woman who had caused it.

“Thank you, Selene,” he echoed, meaning it wholeheartedly.

To his surprise, she flushed darker, ducking her head adorably. “You’re both welcome, and I promise, I’m done embarrassing us all, today. We should get out of here before I start talking your ears off about my craft. Because I will, and then you’ll both wish you hadn’t come by. And I’m pretty sure you must have had a reason to stop by.”

Crammed as she was in the corner of the room, they had to precede her out into the hall, wading through the curious dogs who’d gathered there. They stepped aside to let her lead them back into the kitchen, though, where she offered to top up their drinks. Steve retrieved their helmets from the garden, setting the borrowed clothing on the counter.

“I originally just wanted to bring these back and thank you again for helping me.” He tapped the folded cloth. “And see how you’re doing, considering the mess out there. I’m glad we came by. But…um. I…should also apologize.”

She blinked at him as she set their glasses back on the table. “What could you possibly have to apologize for?”

Bucky frowned at him. “That isn’t your fault, Steve.”

Steve sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I know, but… I’m sorry, Selene. I mentioned your name when I told the others why I disappeared after the explosion the other day, and Tony used it and your address to pry into your background, your…um…pretty much everything to do with you. And probably Ace, by extension.”

He shook his head. “I really am sorry. They keep telling us it’s necessary for a lot of reasons I don’t really want to understand even when I do. If I’d been thinking, I wouldn’t have said. He might still have done it, but I didn’t have to give him such an easy time of it.”

“The ass does it all the damn time.” Bucky growled the words, reaching over to lay his hand on Steve’s forearm. “He could leave it to his damn Legal Department, or let Nat handle it. At least they’d be more discreet. But he insists on doing it himself. Steve likes to think it’s an overblown sense of protectiveness because he hasn’t got many friends, but I think he does it to show off.”

“Bucky!” Steve hissed. “Language!”

The sniper blinked and winced, but Selene chuckled before he could apologize. She waved him off. “No, no, I’m daughter and sister to Army soldiers and engineers, as well as a wordsmith. I did say my grandfather was a sailor and a dockworker, didn’t I? Believe me, I’ve heard, said, and written far worse than that. They’re just words.”

She moved back to the refrigerator and poured herself a soda. “But Bucky’s right, Steve. It’s not your fault. As it happens, I’ve got nothing at all to hide, so whatever he’s dug up isn’t anything literally anyone with access to background check software and far too much time on their hands couldn’t come up with. His is not very impressive snooping. Now, if he wants to help promote my blog or my books, he’s more than welcome!”

She returned to the table, settling back into her seat with another chuckle. “Although, if you want, you can tell him that there’s something about Ace and me that he still doesn’t know. It isn’t a secret, of course, just a little…hm. Different, I suppose. And while you’ve experienced it firsthand, he won’t find it in any database, record, or file anywhere on the planet.”

Steve blinked. “I…have?”

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded, still smiling. “When we took care of you after that explosion. Don’t you remember?”

“I…it’s a little hazy, actually, until I woke up on your couch.” He glanced at Bucky, who wore a concerned frown.

“Ah, well, I’m sure it’ll come back to you when you’re ready.” She waved a hand dismissively. “It’s not really very important. I imagine knowing there’s something he’s ‘missed’ in his snooping will probably tweak his nose a little, though, don’t you think?”

That surprised him into a laugh, and Bucky grinned fiercely. “I like the way you think.”

She cradled her drink between her hands and smirked at him. “I’m glad you do. As for the clothes, you didn’t really need to trouble yourselves. Ace’s father hasn’t come around in more than ten years. He certainly won’t miss them. I keep meaning to donate the lot, and somehow just…never get around to it. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Steve flicked a frown at Bucky, concerned. He got a similar look back.

Selene, however, didn’t seem bothered at all. She turned her smirk on him. “You shouldn’t apologize for things that aren’t your fault, you know. We all have more than enough on our karmic plates without trying to take on what isn’t ours to bear. And I have the feeling you try to take on a great deal more than any single person ought, Captain Rogers.”

He flushed. “I just try to help wherever I can,” he protested weakly. “It’s not that—”

“Heh, she’s got your number, Stevie.” Bucky smirked at him, too.

“He’s not the only one, Sergeant Barnes.” She raised a mock-stern eyebrow at him. His attempt at blank innocence fell flat as she wrinkled her nose at him. “Mm-hmm, we both know what I’m talking about. It may have been your finger, your hands, but never your will or intent. And will and intent are all that matter. You both borrow far more trouble than either of you deserves.”

For a single, stunned moment, they stared at her. She continued to smile, sipping her drink. They turned their stares on each other, to find they each had color rising in neck and cheeks.

She chuckled again. “Now, it’s coming on dinner time. Will you two stay? I’d planned to grill steaks, but I forgot that Ace wouldn’t be home. He’ll eat while he’s out, so I’ve got enough to feed six and just myself to cook for unless I have company.”

Much as Steve found he’d like to, it didn’t seem right to let her feed him twice in a week, and Bucky too. Their metabolisms meant they both ate a lot. He grimaced, reluctant, and tried to ignore the surprised look Bucky threw him. “We really shouldn’t, Selene.”

“You’re needed back at the Tower?”

“Well, no…”

She eyed him thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t have asked if it were an imposition, Steve. I really am enjoying having the two of you visit, and I wouldn’t mind keeping you around a little longer if you’d like to stay.”

He glanced at Bucky, hoping for a reprieve. The sniper raised an eyebrow at him, then grinned at their hostess. “Pretty sure he’d like to stay but has some noble idea it’d be imposing even if you say it’s not. I wouldn’t mind stayin’, though. Home-cooked meal and a chance to stay away from Tony for a while longer? Sign me up!”

Her laugh, warm and happy, took some of the embarrassment out of it for Steve. “Consider yourself so signed, then! Steve?”

“Yeah, I’m glad to stay. Thank you, Selene. And no thanks to you, ya jerk.”

“Just sayin’ it like it is, punk.”

“Don’t think you’re getting the meal for free!” Selene announced with another smirk. “I’m putting you both to work! Bucky, you’re on vegetables. Steve, garlic bread and salad. Do either of you have a dressing preference?”

In very short order, they found themselves in charge of stations in the kitchen, Bucky chopping potatoes and green beans for roasting, Steve slicing and buttering French bread for toasting. Selene got them started, fed the dogs to keep them out from under foot, then pulled steaks out of the refrigerator and spent a few minutes seasoning them before taking them out to the grill.

They set the table together while everything finished cooking, and then settled a platter of grilled steaks, a bowl of roasted vegetables, and a basket full of browned garlic bread in the center. A bowl of salad and two bottles of dressing followed, pulled from the refrigerator at the last moment.

“Et voila!” she announced with a grin, returning to her seat. “Dinner in thirty minutes! Dig in, gentlemen, don’t stand on ceremony!”

Whether because they’d had a hand in preparing it, or just because of new, good company, Steve couldn’t have said, but that meal seemed like the best he’d had in a very long time. He and Bucky told some of the lighter stories about their time in the Army during the War, mostly funny things that’d happened among the Howling Commandos. Selene talked about raising a precocious boy largely by herself.

As Steve had feared, he and Bucky decimated the food, though they both noticed Selene ate very little once more. They exchanged another look over that, but neither said anything. It still didn’t really seem like any of their business.

After a while, they helped her clear up, rinsing dishes and tucking them into the dishwasher. They returned to the living room with cups of coffee to tell more stories, afterward. Selene had doubled over in her seat in the armchair, laughing and brushing tears of mirth from her cheeks thanks to Bucky’s story about the chicken in Colonel Phillips’ command tent, when she abruptly straightened and looked out the front windows. Two canine heads snapped up on either side of her chair, facing the front, too.

“Selene?” Steve asked, startled and a little concerned. He hadn’t heard anything to catch his attention.

“You okay?” Bucky added.

“Ace…” she murmured after a long moment, almost too quiet for them to hear. She got to her feet, heading for the door with the dogs pacing at her sides. Making quick work of the locks, she pulled the door open to reveal Ace standing there, keys in hand, with a uniformed police officer behind him. “Ace! Oh, sweetheart, what happened? Dusk, Sable, back! Sit! Wait! Come in, come in.”

Bucky and Steve lurched to their feet as the young man stepped into the room, the officer close behind. Selene left him to close the door behind himself, her attention on her son, who stood awkwardly with her fingers under his chin. His lower lip had split, both eyes blacked, and dried blood clung to his upper lip below his nose. When she lifted them, his knuckles showed clear scrapes and bruises, and he stood a little hunched, as if his side hurt him.

“I’m okay, Mom,” he rasped, voice slightly rough with emotion. “It’s not too bad.”

Both Avengers’ gazes went straight to the patrolman, who had stared at them until their direct attention made him look away and fidget. “Your...uh, your son was the victim of an attempted mugging tonight, Ma’am,” he explained belatedly.

“He was assaulted on the Myrtle Avenue subway platform a little after nine-thirty, tonight. Fortunately, Transit Authority Security happened to be nearby and heard the altercation. They broke up the fight, detained one of the suspects, and called us. We would have taken him to the hospital, but Mister Thomas here insisted on being brought home, instead.”

She hadn’t taken her eyes off of her son during the explanation. For another long moment, she stared into the young man’s eyes. When she finally turned to face the officer, her spine had gone ramrod-straight and her voice held cold steel. “And the second suspect?”

“Er, escaped before we arrived, Ma’am.”

“But the one you caught will be charged?”

“With assault and attempted robbery, yes.” His eyes darted over the two Avengers, who had moved up to loom behind her without needing to discuss it. “If, uh, you would like to press charges—”

“Yes, of course we’ll press charges,” she answered firmly. “Ace, please sit down before you fall down. I assume you’ve taken my son’s statement, Officer?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He nodded as Ace limped toward the armchair. Dusk and Sable followed him, lifting their noses to lick at his hands.

“Then if you’ll wait just a moment, I’ll get you the information you need.” She turned. “Steve, Bucky, I—”

“Go ahead, Selene,” Steve told her gently.

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, we’ll wait right here with…” He paused to check the name plate on the man’s uniform. “…Officer Morales.”

She nodded and disappeared down the hall. The patrolman very clearly wanted to ask for autographs, or maybe start some kind of conversation, but Steve had no interest in dealing with him just then. Neither, apparently, did Bucky, who simply folded his arms across his chest and leaned a hip against the back of the couch. They waited in a tense silence that, fortunately for poor Morales, didn’t last long.

Selene bustled back into the room with the large First Aid kit Steve remembered from the other night in one hand and two business cards in the other. “This is my personal card,” she told the officer as she handed it over. “You’ll find all of my contact information on it. This is my lawyer, whom I will contact about this in the morning.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.” The officer handed her a slip of paper. “This is the case number, with the detectives’ names and phone numbers. If you have any questions, feel free to call.”

The cards had given Steve an idea. He dug for his wallet, pulling his own card out. Bucky dug one out of his pocket, too, and passed it to Steve. “Our contact information, as well, Officer Morales. We’re family friends. Let us know if we can be of assistance in locating the other suspect.”

The patrolman straightened as he accepted the cards, nearly dropping them in an abortive attempt at a salute. “Yes, Sir!”

“Thank you for bringing him home, Officer.” Selene broke in before the man could get any more effusive. She ushered him toward the door. “Please feel free to contact me or my lawyer if you have any more questions for Ace. Can you see yourself out? I need to tend my son. Have a nice evening!”

Abruptly, she closed the door in the poor man’s face and wheeled to head straight to Ace. The young man pushed himself a little straighter in his seat the moment the patrolman was out of sight. “It wasn’t a mugging, Mom!”

Steve and Bucky exchanged a startled glance and moved back around to where they’d been sitting on the couch. “Can you tell us what happened, Ace?” Steve asked.

“It…” He hesitated, glancing at his mother. She nodded at him and went on dabbing at his knuckles. “They didn’t try to take anything from me. They tried to push me back onto the train. When I fought them, the guy they couldn’t catch tried to throw me over his shoulder.”

Selene went very still. “Did you recognize either of them?”

Ace swallowed hard and nodded. “Remember I told you about those guys I’ve seen hanging around the backstage entrance at the Hall?”

“Yes.”

“Two of them. I guess they followed me onto the subway. I didn’t notice until like three stops before mine. They were watching me, Mom, so I changed cars twice.” He dragged in a ragged breath with a wince. “Except I guess that wasn’t enough, ‘cause they got off right behind me and tried to get me back on the train.”

Bucky leaned forward. “Did they say anything to you?”

“One of ‘em said to stop fighting, they didn’t want to hurt me. But then the other one said that if they hurt me too much, they’d get into trouble.”

“Anything else?”

Ace shook his head, tears welling in his eyes. “Huh-uh. They just…kept hitting, so I kept fighting.”

Selene tilted his head down to press a kiss to his forehead. “You did fine, sweetheart. Did you tell the police all this?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think they believed me.” He used the hand she wasn’t in the middle of bandaging to wipe the tears away a little angrily. “I guess they’ve seen these two before, or something. They kept saying ‘mugging’, even though no one tried to take anything but me.”

Steve had heard enough. “Can you describe them?”

“I think so.”

“Selene, can I get a pencil and some paper from you? I’d like to sketch these knuckleheads.”

“Sure.” She threw him a fierce, hopeful look. She tucked a square of gauze against Ace’s other hand. “Here, honey, hold this. I’ll bring you an ice pack for your face, too, okay?”

It took several tries and some work knocking the rust off his non-Avenger portraiture skills, but eventually Steve managed to produce a pair of sketches that made Ace swallow hard to look at. The young man nodded. “Yes. That’s them. They caught that guy, with the eyebrow piercing – which he doesn’t have anymore, by the way. I pulled it out.”

Bucky grinned ferally at that. “Good for you, kid. Asshole earned it.”

“And then some,” Selene agreed heatedly. She’d finished bandaging Ace’s hands and applied ointment to his lip. She stared at the sketches intently. “I’d like very much to get my hands on them both for a few minutes.”

Unaccountably, Ace actually winced at that. The icy steel in her voice surprised Steve, the same tone she’d used with Officer Morales, but it didn’t seem like any reason for Ace to react that way. Unless he thought he’d be in trouble over what’d happened. The Captain doubted that, though. She definitely looked like an angry mother, so maybe it was just reflex reaction. Any way he looked at it, the idea of a tiny little thing like her going up against thugs like this frightened him more than he wanted to consider.

Apparently, Bucky agreed. “Whoa, hey, no way,” he argued. “Look, if either of you sees this guy hangin’ around, you get away and you give us or the police a call, okay? Here – Steve, gimme another card. There. Program us into your phones, both of you. You see him, or the other guy, or just get a bad feelin’ about anybody hangin’ around, you give us a call, okay? I’m serious about this. Don’t go messin’ around with ‘em.”

Ace’s eyes lit at the cards being offered, though he threw his mother what Steve could only call an amused look. Selene just smiled gratefully, reaching into a back pocket for her own cards. She grabbed the pencil off the table, scribbling on the backs before handing one to each of them. “There. Now you can each call us, too, if you want to. I can’t thank you enough, guys. You didn’t need to get involved like this. I’m sure the police—”

Steve shook his head as he pocketed her card. “We did because we want to. Just, please, promise you’ll take care, okay? If you have any trouble at all, or even suspect there might be trouble, call us. Please.”

For some reason, her dark eyes raked over his face, then Bucky’s, considering for a long moment before she finally nodded. “We will. This is…not the kind of trouble people like us are equipped to handle, you’re right about that. We’ll call.”

Not long after that, Ace began to droop. Steve and Bucky took their leave, promising to call to check in the next day, and headed back to the Tower in angry silence. They hadn’t needed to discuss it to know exactly how they each felt: they wanted to be wrong, but what had happened to Ace didn’t seem like the relatively small assault the police apparently thought it had been. Something was up, and they needed to know what. Soon.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't intended to post again quite so quickly, but this wild hair of mine got way more attention than I'd expected in its first 24 hours in the world. I decided to reward that with another post! I have a lot of this thing already written, so I'm going to shoot for two posts a week at minimum. It's been years since I've posted any of my writing online, so I'm practically new at it again. We'll see if I manage to stick to that.
> 
> Thank you for the reads and kudos, everyone! They mean a lot!


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

“Did you Sense anything else about these two?” Selene asked when she turned from the door after the Avengers had gone, gesturing vaguely at Ace’s injuries. “Intent?”

The young man shook his head. “They Felt pretty blank. Normal, but kind of…muddy? Too much violence in them, and maybe some kind of drug.”

His mother nodded, then softened. “Are you up to working on this?”

“I’m really okay, Mom.” He answered her concern, rather than the words she’d used. “It hurts, but it’s not too bad. So yeah, I can do it. Can you help, though?”

She chuckled fondly and reached for his bandaged hands. “Of course. Just the strength? I don’t know if I’d be much use for anything more.”

He shook his head carefully. “I can take care of everything. I’m just really tired, you know?”

“I know.” Some of the steel came back into her eyes with the answer. Her fingers closed on his wrists, gentle, cradling his palms in hers. “Okay, ready?”

“Ready.” Ace closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and Opened. Immediately, his mother’s familiar, warm power flowed into him. For a moment, he just collected it, taking comfort from her steely support. Then, he tapped into his own dwindling reserve, mixing the two into a homogenous whole, and set to work.

Three cracked ribs wound around with healing power, their mending sent into overdrive. Leaving them to it, he turned his attention to his broken nose. As he did so, he felt fingers gently massaging the injured bridge, helping him to set it back in place. Smoothing the cartilage back together proved a little trickier than the bone, but not impossible. In moments, it had also started to heal.

He moved on then, methodically as she’d taught him, soothing swollen tissues and speeding the reabsorption of blood in bruises. Scrapes began to close, scabbing and flaking as they formed new skin while he smoothed his power over them. This would exhaust him, and take a fair amount from his mother, too, but he wouldn’t have to go to the hospital, and he’d be able to get back to school on Monday without looking like warmed-over roadkill.

“Careful, now.” Her warning murmur broke into his fatigued haze. “Remember, you’ve got to have something to show if the police want to talk to you in the next day or two.”

“Right…” He throttled back on the power, holding it just long enough to soothe away the last of the active pain. At last, he let it all go and flopped back in his seat, opening his eyes. His mother sat back on her heels beside the armchair, looking a little wilty. He frowned in concern. “Mom? Are you okay?”

She smiled, looking tired, but not drained. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Here, let’s get you to bed before you fall asleep right here. Good thing you can sleep in tomorrow, huh?”

He huffed a faint laugh. “Yeah. I’m probably gonna sleep half the day.”

“Did you eat before this happened?” she asked, already on her feet to pull him forward. “You’re going to need to eat really well for the next couple of days to replace what you’ve burned tonight.”

“Yeah, I had—”

“Half a pizza?”

“—two slices of pizza during my break at the Hall,” he finished, grimacing at her. “Jeeze, Mom! It coulda been a burger!”

“Half a pizza.” She chuckled as she slung his arm over her shoulders to steady him. “Yes, it could have, but the odds are better in favor of pizza. Don’t forget I know you, son.”

He wanted to argue, but he felt too tired to come up with anything really useful, especially since he had to admit she did know him that well. Instead, he remembered the men who’d sat with his mother when he came home.

“He still doesn’t know what we did for him the night we found him, does he?”

“Who, Steve?” She glanced at him sidelong, then shook her head. “No, I don’t think he does. There’s no reason he should, really. We could probably tell him if necessary, but I don’t see a need.”

“Guess not. It'd be hard to believe, anyway. Like always.” It still bothered him that they could do things, but no one ever believed it. That disbelief had sometimes even made it dangerous to let others know about it, and of course he’d had to learn that the hard way even after his mother had warned him. It rankled, years later…but maybe not as much as it once had. He understood, now. It didn’t make it fair, though.

“I should think that he, of all people, would find it easier to believe than most,” she pointed out with amusement. “He and Bucky, and probably the rest of the Avengers, too.”

“Oh. Huh. Yeah, guess so.” He hadn’t considered that, yet.

They hobbled down the hall with Dusk and Sable hovering in anxious attendance. When he half-settled, half-fell onto his bed, she bent to pull his shoes off and then peeled the covers back so he could get in underneath them. It took everything he had left to shimmy out of his jeans and drop them off the side of the bed. She huffed a faint chuckle and folded the pants over his piano bench. The dogs had already climbed into bed on either side of him by the time she turned back to smooth his hair off his forehead.

“Good dogs,” she murmured fondly. “You keep him safe, tonight.”

“Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re goin’ to bed soon too, right? Not workin’ after…helpin’ me?”

Her hand glided over his forehead as his eyes drooped. “No, I won’t be working. But it’ll be a little bit before I go to bed, yet. I have some Bindings to weave.”

He frowned. That would take even more power, though he knew she excelled at workings like those. “Don’t…um. Don’t overdo it. Please? I won’t…be awake to help you to…um…to bed…”

“I’ll be careful.” The promise in her voice, and the warmth of her hand on his forehead, reassured him. His eyes slid closed, and he could feel the banked fire of her power beside him. It, at least, felt as strong as it ever had. The knowledge set him at ease. “Call if you need anything. I’ll hear.”

“Mm…kay…”

Selene smiled as her boy drifted into a deep, healing sleep. His face looked leaps and bounds better than it had when he’d first come home, the bruises and swelling around his eyes and nose reduced to those of a week-old injury. She’d Felt him working, had watched with pride as he set himself solidly back on the path to perfect health. She had less than a fraction of his ability with healing, and she knew without a doubt that she could never have done so well on his injuries. Applying their own power to themselves nearly tripled the difficulty, but he’d handled it properly and made it look easy. When he finally came into his full power, sometime in the next five to ten years, he would truly be a Force to be reckoned with. He approached that now, compared to the majority of Folk with Power.

When she knew he would sleep for some time, she turned and padded out of his room, tapping the top of his doorjamb on her way out. The touch sent Power flaring along the Wards she’d set on his room along the seams of walls, floor, ceiling, door, and window, nestled firmly beside the protections he’d placed. He would be safe from outside, now, and insulated from her Working. She could do what she had to without fear of disturbing his sleep.

At the moment, what she had to do was stop both those thugs from harming anyone else, ever again. She moved down the hall, past her own bedroom to her home office. Ducking inside to retrieve two sheets of paper sitting on the printer tray there, she continued on to the basement door at the end of the hall. It opened onto a solid set of stairs. Flipping the light on, she descended into what had once been part of the building’s foundation-wide boiler room.

She’d had the space split, a brick wall built to separate the functional half, where the building’s utilities and infrastructure lay, from this room. Only she and her son ever entered here. At the bottom of the stairs she touched another light switch, and the room bloomed into light.

The space had been properly finished, with drywall and wooden paneling along the walls and good hardwood on the floor. The builders had believed it would be a private recreation or maybe theater room, and she’d let them go on thinking it. In reality, it held cabinets and bookcases all along one wall, crammed full of glass bottles, wooden boxes, old books, and even a few scroll cases.

A solid wooden workbench, empty at the moment, ran the length of another wall. The third wall supported two very special tapestries, a few hand-drawn diagrams, and maps of the city, country, and world. A rolled rug lay along the foot of that wall, lying ready to be unfurled at need across the expanse of hardwood floor.

First, she moved to one of the cabinets and dug among its contents, making very deliberate selections. These, she set into an empty box she kept for the purpose, then double-checked her choices. Satisfied at last, she added one more item, then closed the cabinet and moved across the room to unroll the rug. She’d woven it herself years ago, spending an inordinate amount of time and effort in researching every facet of its creation from materials to colors and figuring. Unfurled, it bore an intricate circular design on its face, ‘decorated’ with meticulous runes, signs, and sigils.

She made certain its edges had settled properly, smoothing one corner with her bare toes, and then stepped to its center. There, she set her box to one side, pulled a single silver cord out, and fastened the cord across the one unfinished arc of the design. It settled into place with an esoteric _snap!_ she Felt in the core of power that lay, quiescent, at her heart. Completed with that cord, the circle would protect her while she worked, keeping other beings out and the products of her own workings in until she had them ready to release.

Settling cross-legged at the circle’s center, she laid the two printouts of the sketches on the rug before her. She had apparently confused Steve and Bucky a bit with her request to snap pictures of Steve’s thug sketches with her phone’s camera. She’d told them she wanted to show the pictures around to their neighbors, and she would do so because additional eyes keeping watch could only help, but that hadn’t been her real reason. This, the Binding, had been her true motivation. They didn’t need to know that. Not yet. Maybe – hopefully – not ever.

Focusing on the two faces, and on the traces of blood they had drawn from her son, she called up a finger of power and sent it out, Seeking. First, the man they’d caught, who even now languished among other arrestees in a station’s holding cell. She found him easily, and spent a few moments making him very uneasy by simply Watching him.

Unfortunately, however satisfying, his discomfort had to be secondary. What she really needed to know was whether he’d moved on his own, or been Moved by something, or someone, else. He proved, at best, a common thug with the usual cocktail of personal disappointments, emotional hurts, and stunted maturity. She didn’t bother looking for specifics. Instead, she took his picture in hand, reached into the box at her side, and began wrapping.

The oldest, strongest Workings often proved the simplest, as well. So, with the Binding. When it came down to it, only the Intent and the Power used to create the working really mattered. She had more than enough of both. As she wrapped, feeding Power into her fingertips, she murmured the words that gave shape to her Intent.

“I bind you from doing harm. Harm against others, and harm against yourself.”*

Over and over again, the words slid from her lips as she wrapped, until at last nothing visible of the picture remained under the silken ribbon she’d used. She tied the end off to the beginning, left trailing for that very purpose, sealing the Work into an unbroken loop. Now, it would take one of the Folk stronger than her to break the Binding. Setting that one aside, she turned her attention to the other portrait.

He proved harder to locate, but only because he had gone farther. To New Jersey, apparently. No sooner did she touch him, though, than she sensed something a bit more to him. Or, perhaps, his surroundings. She called on more power and reached a little harder. What she found bore only the faintest taste, lackey of a lackey’s lackey, perhaps.

The faint trace she could tease out of his personal aura came close to unidentifiable – in truth, she would only recognize it if she encountered it again in a stronger form, if even then. Worse, she couldn’t tell if what she’d found had been directed at Ace, specifically, or had only attached to the thug in question through contamination by tertiary exposure. Steve, and Bucky to a somewhat lesser extent, probably carried a greater measure of a taste of her power with them merely by virtue of having spent several hours inside her home.

Sadly, she simply couldn’t tell enough about that power to know if it could even offer anything like a significant threat. For all she knew, the thug she’d tracked could have simply gone for drinks in a bar near someone with some measure of the blood of the Folk in them. What she’d found didn’t really mean anything. Suppressing irritation, she repeated the Binding on him. These two, at least, would not harm anything of hers again.

With the Bindings complete, she took a moment to gather herself, then reached out and removed the cord that completed the Circle. Power poured out of her in a rush as what she’d done flew out to settle on its intended targets, leaving her momentarily light-headed. She stayed seated for a few moments, until she felt certain her work had settled properly into place.

Deliberately, she collected her supplies and the two wrapped pictures, rose, and moved back to the cabinet. The box and its contents went back where they’d come from, and she laid the two pictures on the bench for later disposal. Finally, she bent and began rolling the rug back to its place against the baseboard of the far wall.

She turned the lights off as she returned to the main floor of their apartment, closing the basement door firmly behind herself. To her surprise, two hours had passed since she’d left Ace asleep in his room. She recalled the power she’d put into the Ward around his room, sending it out to bolster the power in the protections against ill intent she’d woven around the very bones of the building.

For a few minutes, she moved through the rooms to secure their home, extinguishing lights as she went. At last, she headed for her bedroom. She’d had a very long day, with unexpected exertion at its end. She might actually sleep fairly decently, for once.

* * *

“They really kicked the crap out of the kid, Sam,” Bucky concluded at the communal breakfast table the following morning. “I’m pretty sure she’s gonna have to take him to the hospital to have him checked out. Or see a doc, at least.”

“Why didn’t you go with her?” the VA counselor asked, a concerned frown between his brows.

“Ace didn’t look ready to move,” Steve answered, embarrassed that he hadn’t at least offered. “And I was so focused on the sketches…”

Bucky squeezed his shoulder. “Pretty sure they weren’t gonna go right away, and it was pretty late. We can call, check on ‘em…but maybe not until later, yeah? Eight in the morning’s too early for almost-strangers to be makin’ welfare check calls.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Sam coughed, surprised at himself. “I forgot about that. I’ve only met them the once. Why does it feel like we know them?”

“Maybe ‘cause this big mook wouldn’t shut up about them the first three days after we met ‘em?” the sniper asked, shoving the blond playfully with his metal forearm.

Steve colored. “Sorry. It was just…surreal, you know? And they’re really good people.”

“So what are you planning with the sketches, then? I mean, they caught the one guy, right?”

“That’s not enough, Sam, and you know it.” Steve frowned at the two sheets of paper lying on the table above his empty plate. “And something about the way Selene reacted…I can’t help but wonder if she’s worried they targeted Ace, specifically. I’m afraid they’re in some kind of trouble they haven’t told us about. So I want to find out about these two, and see if they’re connected to anything—”

He broke off as Tony shuffled blearily into the room, coffee mug in hand, wincing and squinting against the sunlight streaming in through the windows over the counter as he headed for the coffee machine. For a moment, Steve frowned at the sleepy engineer. Then, he blinked, frowned again, and got to his feet.

Squaring his shoulders, he set his expression in steely determination as he scooped up the two sketches and moved across the kitchen in two long strides. When he got there, he slapped the pages onto the counter beside the coffee maker, sliding one aside so they were both visible. Tony flinched back.

“Here, Tony. You want to snoop into people’s backgrounds?” He tapped the pages, and in that moment, he went full Captain America. “Find out everything you can about these two. There’s an NYPD case file here you can get this one’s name from. I want to know about both of them. Known associates, who they work for, places they frequent, everything.”

For a long moment, the billionaire frowned, eyes darting back and forth between him and the sketches. “I thought you didn’t approve of this stuff,” he finally answered slowly. “Why the change of heart?”

“They attacked Ace last night.” He put on his grimmest Captain’s face. “I intend to find out why. If it was random, fine, I’ll just turn the other one in to the police and leave it at that. But if it had anything to do with the Thomases helping me, I want to know. I need to talk to them, and the police have this one in custody already.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Sam and Bucky exchanging a startled look. Apparently, they hadn’t considered that possibility. Honestly, until he’d decided to enlist Tony’s help a few seconds ago, he hadn’t thought of it, either. So far as they knew, no one outside of Avengers Tower knew where Captain America had disappeared to during the hours after he’d exploded the Porcupine Queen monster.

Seeing Tony, with his constant and fully justified fear of criminals attacking Pepper to get to him, had reminded him that there could be more to the story. Until now, he hadn’t had to worry about it too much. Bucky and the other Avengers could take care of themselves, at the very least long enough for help to get to them. Peggy had been in a secure care facility until she passed. No one could have gotten to her without a fight, and then they’d have had to face her.

Selene and Ace were different. They lived, unguarded, in the world at large. They’d need help right away. Suddenly, Selene’s willingness to help him, and her open friendship, seemed unfathomably more courageous than he’d ever considered. He couldn’t help but wonder if she’d thought about it.

Tony still stared at him, though, so he held firm in spite of the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Wait, so it’s okay to—”

He broke out the Disappointed Captain America expression. “The Thomases are innocent civilians, Tony, private citizens who did the right thing when the opportunity presented itself. These two are criminals who attacked an innocent child in a subway station. There is a world of difference between the two.”

Grabbing his refilled mug from the coffee machine, Tony grimaced. “Okay, okay, I get it. Sheesh. It is too early for this.” He peered at the sketches. “FRIDAY, scan these.”

“Certainly, Sir.” The AI responded. “Shall I pull up the police report, as well?”

“Obviously. Start running facial recognition on the other goon, and while you’re at it, pull up everything you can find on the one already in lockup.” The engineer sipped at his coffee as holograms started popping up around him. “Oh, this guy’s a real peach.”

The man the police held had a record longer than his arm. It started with petty theft and escalated rapidly through drug and weapons possession to assault and armed robbery. The thought of this man laying so much as a finger on Ace, never mind Selene, made Steve feel cold. Then, the evidential pictures they’d taken of Ace’s injuries came up. His hands tightened into fists.

Livid bruises on the young man’s torso suggested the possibility of broken ribs. They’d seen the damage to his face and hands last night, but in the raw light of the camera flash, it all looked much, much worse. Tony and Sam, who had drifted over with Bucky to examine the data as it came in, both winced sympathetically. They’d all worn damage like that at one time or another. They knew how much it hurt.

“Jesus,” Tony breathed, staring. “This kid…guys, he’s not a fighter. I know you’re pissed off I looked into them, but I did, so I know. He’s a musician, and he mentors younger kids at his school. He won a freaking internship at Carnegie. There isn’t a single instance of misbehavior in any of his records, forget actual fights. He’s almost more Apple Pie American than you, Capsicle.”

“I know,” Steve grated, tearing his eyes away from the pictures. He’d started wanting to hit something, which didn’t bode well for the other thug involved in this, if FRIDAY located him before he managed to calm down. It helped some when Bucky moved in close and settled his arms loosely around his waist, so he leaned into the touch, just a little.

“Huh, looks like the cops think it was just a mugging gone bad,” the engineer mused.

“It wasn’t,” Bucky said firmly. “Ace said they tried to get him back on the train. Someone wanted him as unharmed as possible.”

Sam’s eyes widened. “So it wasn’t just an attack, it was an attempted kidnapping?”

Right, they hadn’t gotten that far in the story before Tony’d come into the kitchen. Steve nodded. “He was sure of it. He said he didn’t think the police took him seriously, though.”

“Doesn’t look like they did.” Tony gestured, scrolling through pages of the report. “You know, if it was a kidnapping that didn’t stick and whoever wanted the kid wanted him reasonably healthy, we could be looking at his father. Also, another attempt.”

Steve eyed him. “Selene’s said his father hasn’t been around for more than ten years.”

“Which is true,” the billionaire nodded. “They separated about fourteen years ago, the divorce finalized a couple years after that, and she had to file to have his wages garnished for the child support he owed…um…yeah, ten years ago. Which ended, naturally, when she had his parental rights severed a few years later. From her side, he looks like the classic deadbeat dad. I haven’t looked into him, though. Several someones got all pissy about it.”

“Dude, Tony, try reading the room once in a while,” Sam groused, pinching the bridge of his nose. “So not the time.”

“What’s going on?” Natasha asked from the doorway. Wanda and Pietro stood behind her, looking over her shoulders curiously.

“Looks like someone’s in trouble,” Clint said from the other doorway. Thor stood behind him, already concerned.

Steve sighed. Impromptu morning briefing, go. “Let’s take this into the other room,” he suggested. “This isn’t official. It’s just…”

“Personal,” Bucky completed the thought, though Steve hadn’t intended to put it that way. “So it doesn’t need anybody else’s attention, yet. Won’t hurt for ‘em to be aware of the situation, though, Stevie.”

“No, it won’t.” He just hadn’t wanted to involve what amounted to the entire team in this. Selene did not need nearly a dozen superheroes exploding into her life uninvited. She’d obviously accepted him and Bucky readily enough, but all of them could be…a bit much.

Everyone collected in the living room, sprawling on couches, chairs, and beanbags. They waited while Clint and Pietro collected breakfast from the kitchen, and then launched into the tale. They all knew from the debriefing how Steve had met the Thomases. By the time they’d finished, holograms littered the air around them and the team – well, those present, which meant most of them – knew as much as Steve and Bucky did. More than one of them wore a frown.

“So that’s as far as we’ve gotten,” Steve concluded. “I’ve asked Tony to investigate the two attackers, but I can handle the results of whatever he finds myself. The Thomases are friends. I don’t want to blow up their lives if we don’t have to, so I’d appreciate it if you all just let me and Bucky deal with it, for now. I promise, if it turns into something bigger, we’ll let you all know.”

Wanda looked dubious. “But should we not take precautions to protect them, at least until we know…?”

“Pardon the interruption,” FRIDAY said before Steve could answer. “But I have identified the second suspect. One Dominic Jenkins resides in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn but is currently moving around the West Ward of Newark.”

“Well, he’s a bit out of place,” Clint observed casually.

Steve lurched to his feet, Bucky and Sam a half-second after him. “Do you have his current location?”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Keep on him and brief me on the way.”

“Us,” Bucky corrected, already following.

“Yeah, us,” Sam agreed, a half-step behind Bucky.

That made Steve turn abruptly in front of the elevator doors. “Wait, you guys, you don’t—” He cut off at the sight of eight sets of eyes watching him intently, every one of them displaying some degree of amused resignation. Sam’s and Bucky’s features also bore set determination. They would go with him, even if they had to follow some distance behind.

Bucky chuckled. “We don’t have to. We’re gonna, anyway. Same with everyone in the room – though…” and here he turned to rake the room with a frosty gaze “…everyone’s gonna lay off the Thomases unless there’s no other way to protect ‘em. Yeah?”

That assertion received solemn nods from around the room. Tony swept all his holograms away with a broad gesture, wearing a smirk that clearly said he’d comply with the spirit of the decree, but probably not the letter. Natasha’s lifted eyebrow said essentially the same thing. Clint kept his expression carefully neutral, which also meant he’d get involved if he could do it without getting caught. Thor and Wanda, at least, would probably wait to be asked, but Pietro…would likely be right beside – or in front of – Clint. He got bored far too easily.

This is what Steve had been afraid of…but… Now that it had happened, he somehow found it comforting to know that his teammates would support him even in this. Whatever this might turn into. None of them knew, including him, and yet they would have his back. He sighed, relenting, and shook his head wryly. “All right, all right.” He threw them all a grateful grin. “Thanks, guys.”

* * *

Dominic Jenkins had three times as many convictions as he’d had birthdays, the highlights of which ranged from grand larceny and assault to sexual assault and murder. He’d worked for a number of well-known crime syndicates of one stripe or another over the years. His allegiance seemed to change whenever he got out of prison again.

To accomplish those releases, he’d traded information and favors to plea bargain many crimes down to lesser offenses or knock years from his sentences. Combined with “good” behavior while behind bars, it meant he returned to the streets far more quickly than he ever ought to have. Steve felt sick, knowing he would probably be back out again in less than two years.

When the three of them rolled up on him just after midmorning, they followed him for a little while. He never even noticed. They waited until he’d moved into a relatively deserted area with conveniently common alleys before Steve parked his bike, slung his helmet from the handlebars, and started after him. Sam and Bucky fell in to his right and left in very short order, and Steve almost felt sorry for the oblivious thug as they bore down on him in the street.

It took him a moment to notice them coming, and then decide that they’d come for him, but he surprised them by not actually recognizing them for several crucial seconds. Of course, being in civilian clothes probably helped, there. For some reason, far fewer people recognized Captain America, Winter Soldier, and Falcon when they wore only blue jeans and tee shirts.

They’d gotten within two yards of him when recognition finally flooded his gaze, followed by sheer, wide-eyed terror. He turned and bolted, obliging them by diving into the first alley he came to. Bucky clicked his tongue in disgust and darted after him, so Steve maintained his implacable pace. When he and Sam turned into the alley, they found that the sniper had already caught their quarry at the far end, where a fence had effectively cut off the miniscule chance for escape he’d started with.

As they watched, Jenkins raised a fist as if to throw a punch, froze…and then dropped it with a fairly pathetic mewl. Clearly confused, Bucky reached out with his flesh arm, driving his fist almost gently into the man’s chest. He staggered backward, impacting the brick alley wall, and the sniper pinned him there with the same arm.

“He didn’t even put up a fight,” the Sergeant told them as they got within comfortable speaking distance. He sounded almost disappointed.

“Just means it’s easier for him to answer our questions,” Sam replied with calculated indifference. “I really hate trying to decipher the answers when they’re missing teeth.”

Steve planted himself squarely in front of their prisoner, folding his arms across his chest and glaring sternly. “Pretty sure you get the situation, son. You’re going to answer some questions for us. If you tell the truth, I’ll pass that along when the police pick you up. If you don’t, I’ll pass that along when the police pick you up.”

“Kicked the shit outta my pops when I was sixteen,” Jenkins spat, glaring right back. “Ain’t nobody’s son.”

“Fair enough,” Steve shrugged as Bucky knocked the moron back against the brick just hard enough to rattle his cage a little. “I’d be ashamed to claim you, anyway. You assaulted a friend of ours last night. Was that your genius plan, or did someone send you after him?”

Color drained from his face. “Shit!”

Bucky chuckled darkly. “Think he’s got a better picture now, Cap.”

Sam snickered. “Sure looks like it.”

“You haven’t answered the question, Jenkins.”

The captured thug’s hands closed into fists, his arms twitching as if he wanted to take a swing at them but knew it wouldn’t do him any good. Or his arms wouldn’t cooperate, though given his record, that didn’t make very much sense. He looked peculiarly frustrated, and angry because of it. “It wasn’t my idea! We was told to follow him!”

“Just follow?”

He thrashed in Bucky’s grip. “Ain’t tellin’! They’ll kill me!”

“You’ve already got a reputation as a double-dealing snitch when you’re on the inside,” Steve pointed out coldly. “If you earn a good word from us, the officers will pay attention to you while you’re in custody. If I tell them you wouldn’t cooperate, though, they might just forget which cell they put you in. For a while, anyway. Just how many of your cell mates do you think you’ll find you’ve ratted out over the years?”

Jenkins glared sullenly, chin thrust out, the very picture of belligerence. Perversely, it made Steve want to laugh. This kid came up about eighty years too late to out-stubborn him or Bucky. Still, this kind of negotiation had its own pattern to follow. Steve and Bucky, and eventually Sam, had been through it over and over during their ongoing war against Hydra. He waited, arms crossed, expression stony. It didn’t show, but he knew Bucky had begun to lean on the arm that held the man in place.

Finally, Steve shrugged again. “Call the police, Sam. Tell them we have a belligerent, wanted fugitive in custody.”

“Sure.” Sam dug in his pocket for his phone. He shook his head at Jenkins. “It’s your funeral, man. I hope your bosses stick by you on this, ‘cause that’s the only way I see you coming outta this alive. The cops love Cap, here.”

That did it. Belligerence crumbled, replaced by terror. “Wait, wait! I gotta…just…wait a minute!”

“What you’re about to say had better be the truth, Jenkins,” Steve warned, “or there won’t be a cell anywhere in the world deep enough to protect you.”

“Okay!” he wheezed. “We was just supposed to follow the kid until he got to the Myrtle Avenue Station. Then, we hadda keep ‘im on the train up to Queens. Someone was s’posed ta meet us up there t’ take ‘im.”

“Who?”

“Dunno! They said we’d know ‘em when we saw ‘em. Thing was, he wasn’t s’posed t’ be payin’ attention, or any kinda fighter! We was told he’d just come quietly, do like we told ‘im, if we just showed a knife. But he saw us, and changed cars, and we couldn’t catch up to ‘im to keep ‘im on the train like we was told. And then he turned into a damn demon on the platform.”

So far, what he’d said tallied with Ace’s impressions. Steve leaned just slightly forward. “Where did your orders come from?”

“I...I don’t…”

“Uh-uh,” Bucky warned. “You’re a peon who trades information for accommodation on prison time. We all know you know where the orders came from. Or have a damn good guess.”

“Look, my boss is Danny Alejo. He gets his orders from Blackjack Verrano. I don’t know where he got the orders, I swear! Coulda come from any of maybe four people, or even all of ‘em! All I know is, someone wanted the kid, and if it came down the pipeline to me, someone was payin’ good money for it to happen! Or…or maybe tradin’ favors. Higher up, sometimes it’s like that, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Steve grunted, unimpressed. He leaned in closer, his face just inches from Jenkins’. “Take your best guess, then. Who gave the order?”

Now, he looked genuinely afraid. “I got no proof, but if I name names and got no protection, they’ll kill me. I’m serious, I’ll be a dead man.”

The Captain straightened, unrelenting. “Best. Guess.”

“L-Look, I…I wasn’t in on it, just happened to be in the building when it went down, okay? This is just a guess! Blackjack had a meetin’ with Boss Forsythe and some rich jackass from uptown. ‘Bout two days ago. Then the orders come down we gotta get that kid to Queens. It’s all I got, I swear!”

“So why that kid?”

Jenkins shook his head. “No idea, man. My position, ya don’t ask questions like that. Ya just do what you’re told.”

Steve scowled, but it rang true enough. After a long moment of apparent consideration, during which he really just wanted to see if Jenkins would break and spill anything else, he nodded. “You did good, Jenkins. Sam, give the police a call, let ‘em know we’ve got a fugitive who wants to turn himself in for police protection.”

“You got it, Cap,” the medic chuckled.

Bucky secured the man’s wrists with a zip-tie, and they walked back to their bikes to await the arrival of the local LEOs. While they waited, standing around in a remarkably unnoticed knot on the curb, the sniper eyed their captive curiously. “One thing I don’t get,” he began, wearing a faint frown. “Why didn’t you fight? I’ve seen your rap sheet. You aren’t exactly a fainting flower. I expected you to try to take my head off.”

Jenkins shrank in on himself, looking more than a little ashen. “I don’t know, man! Woke up this morning, same as always, only today I make a fist and I can’t throw it. I just freeze up. Only managed a coupla swings, and they went wide. Like I never swung a fist in my life. It’s the damnedest thing. Didn’t figure I oughta try ta take on the Winter Soldier the one day I can’t land a punch to save my life.”

Shocked, the three Avengers exchanged a look. They definitely hadn’t expected that answer. The thug huddled miserably, not even bothering to look around when a police cruiser rolled up twenty minutes later. They turned him over, along with an explanation for why they’d detained him, a recounting of what he’d told them, and the NYPD case number attached to the assault. The slightly awestruck patrol cops took more notes than they could possibly need, then put Jenkins in the back of their car and climbed in themselves. Steve leaned over the driver’s side window.

“Wonder if you could put it out I might need to talk to this yahoo again?” he asked, keeping his tone light and friendly. “He gave us what we needed for now, but we might come up with some follow-up questions to ask. I’d hate to lose a source if we can help it.”

“Oh, yes sir, Captain!” the patrolman answered entirely too enthusiastically. “We’ll take good care of him, don’t you worry.”

Steve grinned. “Thanks. Be safe!” He straightened and slapped the top of the patrol car twice as he stepped away. They drove off, and he returned to the curb.

“Think it’s safe to call and check on Selene and Ace, now, Buck?” he asked as he threw a leg over his bike and reached for his helmet.

“Yeah, should be. We stoppin’ for lunch?”

Sam moaned dramatically. “Man, I hope so! I’m starving to death, here!”

Steve laughed. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll stop. You guys figure out where, I don’t care. I’m gonna call the Thomases when we get going, though. Want me to conference you in?”

“Yeah!” The chorus was the last time they agreed for the next fifteen minutes.

When they’d finally decided on a favorite pizza place through best-three-out-of-five Rochambeau, they all donned helmets and pulled out into traffic on the way back to Manhattan. Steve waited a few minutes before placing the call.

“Call Selene Thomas,” he ordered his phone over his helmet’s intercom, glad that Sam had opted for headgear that would key into theirs.

A moment later, they were all alerted that the call had begun by the ringing. It only rang three times, though, and then Selene picked up. “Hello?” she snapped.

Steve blinked, surprised, but recovered quickly enough. “Uh, hi, Selene. It’s Steve Rogers. I’ve got Sam and Bucky on the line with us.”

“Oh, good heavens, I’m sorry, Steve! And Bucky and Sam!” she replied immediately, sounding embarrassed and apologetic. “I didn’t look at the caller ID this time. Naturally. The one time it isn’t who I expect. Gods, I’m so sorry!”

“Everything okay?” he asked, concerned all over again.

She sighed, exasperated. “Oh, yes, everything’s fine. It’s just Ace’s father. Ten years without a single damn word, and all of a sudden he’s emailing both of us and blowing up my phone. I was halfway through blocking his number when you called.”

“Jesus,” Bucky growled. “Are you and Ace okay?”

“Yes, we’re fine.” Her laugh held no humor at all. “It’s unexpected after so long, but nothing’s changed since the last time we heard from him. We’re used to this. I don’t particularly care what caused this sudden interest in his son, I’m not having him breeze in to play Papa for as long as he likes, and then breeze out again. It’s nothing.”

“Do you need us to come by?” Sam asked gently. “Or just call to check in later, too?”

“Oh, no, no, don’t go out of your way. Really, we’re fine. Ace slept pretty late, and he’s complaining that everything hurts, so we got a really late start, today.” She chuckled, and this time the sound held a fond warmth. “We’re fine, just slightly annoyed, and really probably not very good company right now.”

Her attention seemed to fade for a moment, and then refocus. “Although I’d meant to call earlier, before my mood flew south for the winter. I’m thinking of having an end-of-summer barbecue next weekend, but it’s an awfully tame thing with just Ace and me. He suggested, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, that I ask if you gentlemen would like to join us. The three of you, and any of the other Avengers who’d like to tag along. We can potluck, if anyone wants to bring things, though I usually have more than enough.”

Steve opened his mouth to demure, only to have Bucky cut him off. “That sounds great!” he enthused. “Steve and I can’t really cook worth beans, but I’ll bet we can find something to bring along.”

She laughed, and this time it sounded genuine. “Or you can come over a little early and help me set up.”

“Or that,” Steve agreed, giving in. Bucky seemed to really like the Thomases. He did, too, for that matter. He suddenly couldn’t figure out why his knee-jerk reaction was always to decline her invitations.

“Oh, man, I’ll bring my mother’s pineapple crumble!” Sam jumped in, sounding just as enthusiastic as Bucky.

“Oh, that sounds fantastic! I’ll plan for at least three guests, then. And you’ll pass on the invitation to the others for me?”

“We will,” Steve agreed again.

“Oh, I’m sorry, excuse me a moment…” Her voice went distant as she covered the phone’s mic, though she couldn’t muffle all sound. “Ace! What are you doing? Good grief, you couldn’t wait five minutes for me to get off the phone? You’re going to give yourself the concussion you didn’t get last night! Just give me a minute!”

They heard her exasperated sigh as she uncovered the phone again. “I’m so sorry, guys, but I’d better go entertain Ace before he does himself another injury. Don’t be strangers, now, all right? You guys can give Sam our numbers, too. And—oh, for…Ace! I said wait! I’m sorry, I really should go.”

They all laughed as they said their goodbyes, and then she disconnected the line. “Well, it sounds like they’re doing okay,” Sam ventured after a moment. “Even if her ex is making an ass of himself.”

“It’s good to know Ace is feeling good enough to be getting into trouble,” Steve agreed.

“Any reason we didn’t tell her we got the second guy?” Bucky asked mildly, sounding amused.

“Jesus, Barnes, after what she said about her ex?” Sam exclaimed.

“What? Wouldn’t it be good news? Now she doesn’t have to worry he’ll pop up again!”

Steve coughed, embarrassed. “I…kinda forgot to mention it. I meant to. But then the thing with the ex…”

Bucky chuckled. “And you got all worried all over again. Sheesh, Stevie, it sounded like she’s got that much handled, at least.” He went silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice held reluctance. “Although…”

“It does seem a little coincidental, doesn’t it?” Steve asked quietly.

“Yeah, it…kinda does.”

“Wait, wait. What?” Sam asked. “That her ex just broke ten years of silence the day after someone tries to take their kid? Well, damn. Yeah. It does.”

A long silence filled the comm. Eventually, as they turned onto the 78 headed for the Holland Tunnel, Bucky broke it. “Okay. So. We let FRIDAY chew on what we heard today, and we call Selene later to let her know what we learned. Or we go by tomorrow, just to check, and tell her then. Whaddaya think?”

“I think…” Steve paused, mulling it over. “I think it seems like something that should be said in person, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t much like the idea of telling her over the phone, and then leaving her alone to deal with it after we hang up,” Sam agreed immediately. “I mean, she’s gonna want to protect Ace, but how does she do that? She can’t be with him all the time. That’s a lot to deal with.”

“Yeah. Huh.” Bucky answered, his tone making it clear he had something on his mind. Since Steve had an idea or two churning in his, he couldn’t blame him. They all fell silent again, and remained that way until they pulled into Little Italy Pizza and bickered over ordering the pies. By the time their order got to their table, they’d managed to fall into normal, light conversation. Still, Steve could almost see the heavier thoughts hovering in the backs of their minds, and none of them bothered with pretending otherwise. They’d have a few decisions to make before they returned to the Thomas’ brownstone with their news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * This section is an homage to an old favorite movie! Virtual cookies to those who can identify it!


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 “Well, I’ll be damned,” Sam breathed from his position on Steve and Bucky’s loveseat. He’d joined them in their apartment after lunch without anyone actually saying anything, and they’d all sprawled in the living room with the big-screen television on low volume for background noise as they all mulled the situation over silently. After an unproductive hour or so, the medic had borrowed Steve’s Starkpad and poked around on its surface for almost another hour before the exclamation escaped him. “What’s Selene’s address, again?”

The two super-soldiers, sprawled across most of the couch and each other, turned their attention to him. Steve gave the address, levering himself up from his position half-collapsed against Bucky’s side. “What are you looking at?”

“Zillow.” As if that explained anything. They stared blankly at him, and he clicked his tongue at them. “It’s a real estate search site. I added Cobble Hill to my search, and then Bed-Stuy just for the hell of it. Look what came up.”

The blond accepted the tablet, blinking in surprise at what lay on the display. The front of Selene’s building, looking a little less polished than the last time they’d seen it, and below it a listing for a long-term lease on one of the apartments inside. A note at one side of the page announced four additional listings at the same address. He tilted the screen so Bucky could see, tapping slowly through the pictures and then the information.

_“Beautiful new GUT RENOVATION in Prime Bed-Stuy! 1,458 sq.ft. 4 bed / 2 bath LONG-LEASE APARTMENT on the corner of Quincy and Stuyvesant. Modern finishes, Viking stainless steel appliances, High Ceilings, Great Light and Spacious! This gem is an ABSOLUTE Must See!”_

For a long moment, no one said anything. Sam waited, watchful but with his expression shuttered. Eventually, Steve frowned faintly. “She...owns the building,” he said slowly, turning the new information over mentally. “She said something about them being the only ones in it, right now. I guess because of the renovations.”

  
“Jesus, Stevie, she owns the place?” Bucky breathed, eyes still on the listing. “How does she have time for all the crap she does?”

  
Sam snickered. “There really isn’t all that much to owning a building, Barnes. She probably hires someone to do work around the place when it’s needed.”

The sniper lobbed a pillow at him. “She’s a writer, an artist, a landlady, a mom, and a damn good person, even with bein’ sick. Was more wonderin’ how she manages jugglin’ all that with no help at all.”

“Well, she’s obviously done just fine without it,” the counselor pointed out. “And I haven’t heard her asking, either. I—wait, what do you mean, being sick? She’s sick?”

Bucky nodded and explained in brief what Selene had told them. Sam wore a frown when he’d finished. “Okay, wow. That’s gotta be hard on Ace, too. They’ve got way too much crap on their plates.” He paused, then shook his head. “But they still aren’t asking for help. Given how well they’ve done, we need to be respectful of that.”

Steve sighed. “You know what I’m thinkin’, Buck.”

The ex-assassin craned his neck a little to look him in the eyes. He frowned. Blinked. “Ya think that’s a good idea? We could just wind up draggin’ more trouble to her door.”

“Could do that just bein’ her friends,” the blond pointed out.

Sam coughed. “So, for those of us not on the super-soldier mental wavelength?”

“It’s the same thing I bet you were thinking when you mentioned this,” Steve answered, waving the tablet. “She’s got vacant apartments in her building, and Bucky and I have been thinking of finding a place to live at least part-time that isn’t in Tony’s immediate reach. Neither of us really wants to have to kick his ass the next time he…well, you know.”

“Oh. Yes, that is what I was thinking.” He grinned. “Not as far off the wavelength as I thought. So, next question. Do we all want to be in the same building again, just in Brooklyn?”

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him. “When we ain’t workin’, we spend half our time on your couch, and you spend half your time on our couch,” he pointed out, waving his metal arm between them in illustration. “I remember it bein’ that way with you two down in DC, too. Did you think that’d change if we weren’t living in the Tower?”

Steve snickered at his startled blink. “Okay, fair point. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“Yeah, yeah. Smartass. Do the third-floor apartments have roof access?”

“Uh.” The sniper reached over to tap the screen a few times. “Yes.”

“So print out a couple of applications. Where do you guys hide the pens?”

* * *

 They delivered the news of Jenkins’ arrest, and his information, over coffee in Selene’s living room the following afternoon. The three of them took up the entirety of her couch, leaving the armchair for her. Ace, looking a great deal better than he had just a couple of days ago, sat on the floor with his back against the armchair. He absently petted a dog with each hand as he listened.

Halfway through their explanation, Selene leaned forward, dropping one hand to lie protectively on Ace’s shoulder. By the end, her eyes held a sort of fiery fierceness, banked to a glowing ember for the moment. Steve found himself forcefully reminded of all the sayings about getting between mothers and their young. For all her diminutive size, he realized suddenly that he definitely didn’t want to test that with her.

“Can you think of any reason someone would want to take Ace?” Sam finally asked, tone gentle.

“I can think of a few, yes.” Her voice held a sharp edge of rage. After a moment, her fingers tightened on her son’s shoulder, and her expression and voice both softened. “You know what this means, Ace.”

He grimaced and twisted slightly to look up at her. “I gotta go to school, Mom! And over to Carnegie! I’m not gonna stop living my life because some dickhead somewhere decides—”

She flicked him between the eyebrows. “Language, son. We have company. And I didn’t say you couldn’t do those things. You just won’t be doing them on your own until we get this sorted out.”

“But—!” Whatever argument he would have made got cut off by the sound of the door buzzer. The dogs tore across the room, tails wagging eagerly.

The glare Selene shot the intercom should by rights have done some kind of damage. She rose, flipping them an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry, guys. Let me just deal with this.” At the intercom panel beside the door, she tapped a button. “Yes?”

“Let me in, Selene,” a man’s voice demanded through the speaker. “We need to talk.”

The way mother and son tensed at the sound of that voice put all three men on the sofa on high alert immediately. They turned to look at the woman, who now stood stiffly with one hand pressed to her forehead and the other on the panel. “Rick. What are you doing here?”

“I told you. We need to talk.”

“There is nothing to talk about. The time for talking passed more than ten years ago. Go away.”

“I’m not leaving until you’ve heard me out. This is for Asa.”

Selene pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly suppressing a sigh. “Just…wait there.”

“I’m not having this conversation on your front stoop.”

“Then you’re not having the conversation at all,” she snapped back. “Your call.” She pressed the button again and turned to face them. “I’m so sorry. Asa, I want you to stay inside.”

“But Mom…” The young man had gotten to his feet. “I don’t want you out there by yourself with him.”

Something in her softened at that, and she managed a small smile. “I’ll be fine, sweetheart. You know he’s never been violent.”

“Depends on your definition, doesn’t it?”

Ace’s concern worried Steve. He exchanged a glance with Bucky and Sam, who seemed just as worried. Sam looked between their hosts. “Can I make a suggestion?” They both eyed him curiously. “We crack the front window open just enough so we can hear. If you wind up needing help, we’re just a couple seconds away.”

Selene slanted a look at Ace. He shrugged dubiously, then nodded. “Okay, I guess.”

“I’ll be careful.” And then she slipped through the door, closing it firmly behind her.

Sam got up and headed for the windows immediately. “What’s got you so worried about this, Ace?”

Dusk and Sable had crowded up against each of the boy’s sides, pressing against him. He had his arms crossed over his chest. “It’s just…Mom’s never really said much about him at all, to be honest, but I can remember some. And, you know, I know her. Rick’s never really been great at taking ‘no’ for an answer. I’m pretty sure some…bad stuff happened. I just don’t know exactly what.”

That put frowns on all three men’s faces just as Sam got the window open. Selene’s voice flooded in immediately. “…than a decade, and suddenly you show up out of the blue thinking you can make demands? If that was ever a ship, it sailed a damn long time ago. Now. I’m here. You have five minutes to say whatever it is you’re so desperate to say, and then you’re going to leave. I have guests waiting on me. Go.”

“I have a right to see my kid.” The man’s voice had a sullen belligerence to it that Steve liked less and less.

“No, actually, you don’t. I had your parental rights revoked years ago. If you didn’t hear about it, that’s not my fault. Maybe you should have kept an address where the court could find you to serve the papers.”

“Look, I get it, but you have no idea the shit I have been through. I couldn’t keep a job because of my back, I had to have surgery, I wound up homeless and living out of my car for a while—”

“Ugh, what are you on, Rick? You can’t even stand still.”

“That doesn’t matter! You are not listening to me!”

“It matters because you’re standing here demanding to see Ace. All right, fine. Talk.”

For a moment, they fell silent. Bucky, scowling, got to his feet and moved around the couch to lean a hip against its back. When the man spoke again, it came in a low almost-growl. “I am finally in a better place. I’m working again, for some people who’re already looking to promote me. The benefits are really good. I’m in company housing, but it’s my own place. I just want to see my kid, be his Dad, spend weekends with him, coupla weeks in summers, the way it was supposed to be after you took him away from me.”

“After _I_ …” Selene stopped. For a moment, she remained silent. Steve could imagine her staring at him. “No. I’ve heard all this before. The answer is no, and this conversation is over with. Go away, and do not try to contact either of us again. I’m going down to the courthouse to get a restraining order in the morning. If I see you again, I will have you arrest—did you just try to put your hands on me?”

That tore it. Steve vaulted over the back of the couch as Bucky jerked the door open. “Sam, stay with Ace! And call the police!” he called over his shoulder as he followed his boyfriend through the door. He made sure it closed properly, then sprinted to catch up so that he went through the external door within a half-step of the sniper.

The scene in the tiny front yard made them both freeze for a split second, assessing. Selene faced a man close to Steve’s height, but carrying what had to be nearly half again his weight in sheer, pillowy bulk. If he had any muscle at all, it lay concealed under a great deal of padding. He’d gone bald or shaved his head, hard to tell, and his age could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty. He puffed like a bellows, the sound more than a little wheezy.

As they came out onto the stoop, he made a clumsy grab at Selene’s arm. Wearing a vastly unimpressed expression, the tiny woman slipped back and to one side, neatly positioning herself closer to the stoop than to her assailant. Taking that as their cue, the Avengers exchanged a single look, nodded, and moved.

Steve stepped down into the yard, putting himself squarely between their friend and her attacker. Bucky leapt off the steps, landing behind and to one side of their opponent. Without pausing, he pivoted and reached out with his left hand, closing metal fingers on the man’s meaty shoulder just as he tried to step forward. When he jerked to a halt, the sniper growled, “Pretty sure you want to stop, now.”

The man – Rick – tried to jerk his shoulder out of the metallic grip. Far from working, it only earned him a slow, steadily increasing squeeze that definitely took his attention off the small woman standing behind Steve. He winced and turned – or tried to, anyway.

“Ow! Let go of me, you son of a bitch!” He swung a meaty paw but hit only air as Bucky applied pressure to keep him facing away from anything like a target. “I wasn’t tryin’ to hurt her!”

“Not what it looked like when we came out,” Steve told him, allowing his anger to show. He glanced over his shoulder. “You okay, Selene?”

She smiled up at him. “I’m fine. I’m quicker than him, always have been. He didn’t actually lay a finger on me.”

Thank Heaven for small favors. Steve didn’t want to think about how she could have been hurt before they got to her. He returned his attention to the jackass in Bucky’s grip just as the former assassin kicked the backs of his legs, sending him to his knees in the little plot of grass. He bit off a pained howl. “Ow, Christ! You don’t have to be so rough! Damn! I’m not doing anything!”

“Not now, you aren’t. Gimme your hands.” To Steve’s surprise, Bucky pulled a zip-tie out of a pocket and went to work securing the belligerent man. “Look, if you keep squirmin’, it’s just gonna hurt more. Cops’ll be here in a little while.”

That made his head snap up, pale skin going pasty, and Steve could see what Selene had asked about earlier. His watery-blue eyes had nearly crimson rims, bloodshot whites that leaned closer to yellow, and even as he knelt there with Bucky’s hand on his shoulder again, he couldn’t seem to control dozens of small twitches all over his body. He’d definitely arrived while still under the influence of something.

“You called the cops, Selene?” he demanded, outraged. “Fuck you! I’m gonna lose my fucking job, thanks to you!”

Bucky whacked him lightly – mostly – across the back of the head. “Hey! Respect! Shoulda thought of that before you showed up here actin’ like an asshole. Whatever happens, it’s all on you.”

“I just wanna see my kid!”

Selene finally stepped out from behind Steve, and he had to fight the urge to pull her back behind him. She didn’t move far, though, remaining close beside him. “So. Guys, this is my ex-husband, Rick Hamilton.” She sighed. “He wasn’t…like this…when I married him. But I was also very young and incredibly naïve, so there’s that. Anyway. Rick, meet Steven Rogers and James Barnes.”

“Why don’t you take Selene back inside, Steve?” Bucky suggested after a moment of sullen silence. “I’ll wait out here with the dumbass.” His expression held concern that worried Steve as he turned to look at their hostess. She definitely appeared tense around eyes and mouth, her arms folded tightly across her abdomen.

“Right. Selene?”

She nodded a little jerkily and slipped past him to the stoop, pulling her key out of a pocket. In moments, they walked back into the apartment. Dusk, Sable, and Ace met them at the door, the dogs frisking around them and the young man all but dwarfing his mother as he enfolded her in a hug. Steve stepped around them, suppressing the bizarre thought that he’d have liked to be able to wrap his arms around her, too. Honestly, where had that come from?

“You really okay, Mom?” Ace asked, voice a little shaky.

“I’m really okay, son,” she answered, returning the hug. “I’m just sorry you – all of you – had to hear that. He’s…changed a lot, since the last time we saw him.”

Turning, she released Ace and fixed a look full of gratitude on Sam, then on Steve. “Thank you both. I know you know it and I keep saying it anyway. You didn’t have to get involved.”

Sam chuckled. “Actually, it’s Steve and Bucky. They really do have to get involved. I’m not sure they know how to not get involved in stuff like this. And I’ve probably spent too much time hanging around them. Seems like since I met them, I can’t not get involved, either. We’re glad to help.”

When the police arrived, they spent some time pulling each of them aside to get their statements. Bucky threw Steve an amused look when he returned from the hall after giving his explanation for their call. Sam came back wearing a grin that said he hovered on the knife’s edge of controlling laughter. The hero-worship in the eyes of the officer that called him next explained both. Steve suppressed the urge to shake his head and hoped his statement would make it into the incident report whole.

By the time the police cruiser rolled away with Hamilton in its back seat, nearly two hours had passed since he’d interrupted their conversation. Selene had sunk back into the armchair, looking worn thin around the edges. The dogs laid their heads on each of her knees, and Ace perched himself on the arm of her chair. All three actually looked a little worried. Selene, however, merely heaved a sigh and mustered a smile.

“Seriously, guys, I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I had no idea he’d actually come into town. Or that he knew where we live, now. So, where were we?”

Steve glanced at the other guys, wondering if they should go ahead. Bucky gave a determined nod, but Sam hesitated before shrugging. He considered it for a moment, keenly aware of Selene and Ace’s expectant expressions, and then reached for his shield case. Withdrawing the applications and accompanying paperwork, he laid them on the coffee table in two stacks.

“We wanted to talk to you about these, too. Since we’re here.”

She automatically followed his motion to the pages on the table, then froze when she realized what lay there. Glancing up at them in disbelief, she slowly reached out to pick up first one stack, then the other. Looking confused, Ace leaned over to look, too. The moment he realized what his mother held, his face lit up, then fell quickly back to confusion.

“But,” he said slowly, “you all live at Avengers Tower.”

Bucky snorted. “And Tony Stark is going to die if we do not get some space between him and us.”

“Serious bodily harm, at least,” Sam agreed wryly. “The man has no respect for boundaries.”

“We can work with him just fine,” Steve hastened to say, tossing them a reproachful look. “We mesh as a team better and better the longer we work together. It’s just living with him that’s…problematic.”

Selene blinked at him, eyes going wide as she considered that. “Oh dear. I can only imagine. I might want to strangle him, myself, if I lived with him and he’s anything like he is on television when he’s at home.”

“Worse.” Bucky groused. “TV cameras only have so much time to catch him being him.”

Selene covered a snicker with the paperwork, then flipped through each stack for a few moments. She frowned faintly as she skimmed each page, some of the tenseness coming back into her face. Finally, she set all the pages in her lap and folded her hands atop the stack. Her eyes met each of theirs for a moment.

“You obviously had this planned before you got here today, or you wouldn’t have all this paperwork ready. So I know this isn’t to do with what just happened. But…”

She held up one finger, eyeing each of them sternly. “I do not want you three moving in here because you think we need protecting, or saving, or hero-ing. You all have enough of that on your plate as it is, and you should not have to think about it when you’re at home. Home is for relaxing.”

Steve could feel a flush creeping up his neck from his collar, but Bucky waved one hand – the right – dismissively. “We need space from Tony. You need tenants. We thought we’d split our time between here and the Tower, mostly here but there when necessary. It’s really mostly so we’ll have a haven away for a while. We don’t exactly get vacation time. We need this…maybe more than you do.”

All true, as far as it went, and while Steve could never have delivered that without mentioning the rest of their concerns, he knew when to keep his mouth shut and let someone else handle a situation. Bucky or Sam would be better at convincing her, since he really was more concerned for Selene and Ace than with his own need to get away from Tony for a while. They both did a little better with the self-interest side of this conversation, though he did understand Selene’s reservations. He’d known she wouldn’t want them to move in just to keep an eye on her and Ace.

She eyed them all again, probably noting his heightened color, then picked the papers up again. Glancing at the cover sheet of each packet, she hummed softly. “Well. It’s not as if I need to run background or reference checks on any of you. Ace, honey, can you bring me the keys for A2 and C1 and 2?”

The young man mostly suppressed a joyful whoop and darted off, leaving the adults in the room chuckling softly. When he came back, they all got up to go and tour the apartments. It took exactly no time at all for Steve to decide they’d made the right move. The apartment he and Bucky had selected not only lay directly across the hall from Selene’s but mirrored hers almost exactly. Most importantly, it had a room that corresponded to her workroom, with the same large, south-facing windows that let in so much light for her loom work. It would make a perfect art studio, with good natural light year-round. A second room would be perfect for Bucky’s personal armory, with a little reinforcement, which they made sure to clear with her right then.

She chuckled. “Really, as long as it’s all legal and you don’t bring in anything that could blow us all sky-high, I don’t mind. I know you’ll keep it all stored safely.” No one mentioned the shotgun she’d had ready the night they’d pulled Steve out of the garden.

The elevator ride up to the third floor was a little crowded, all things considered, but Sam immediately decided he liked the roof access – a short flight of stairs in the communal hall opposite the elevator and main stairwell. He also greatly appreciated the washer/dryer units in each apartment. What finally sold him, though, was the set of French doors leading out onto a private balcony at the back of the building. It happened to be just large enough for him to take off from or land on if he found himself needing to use his wings.

Ace wandered off while they discussed contract alterations, the sounds of his piano practice providing a pleasant background for the conversation. Eventually, Selene sat back with a smile. “Okay. I think I’ve got what we need. I’ll have these drawn up while I’m out tomorrow, and you can come by Tuesday or Wednesday to pick them up. I’ll have keys for you when you bring them back with the payment. We could make the barbecue this weekend a moving-in party, if you like! Sound good?”

It really did.

“You know what we have to do now,” Bucky observed over their helmet-comm as they drove back toward Manhattan.

“What’s that?”

“Gonna have to shop for furniture.”

“Oh. Huh.” It’d be the first time they’d ever done that together. Back in the Thirties, they’d just collected hand-me-downs from family and neighbors. SHIELD had furnished Steve’s first apartment after he’d come out of the ice, and he’d just moved into the Tower with Bucky when he’d finally come in. There, Tony had already designed and furnished everything. For the first time in their lives, they could look forward to a space of their own, filled with things of their own choosing. He found that a very heady notion. “Sounds like fun.”

“Kinda does, don’t it?” He could hear the grin in Bucky’s voice. It made him grin, too, and that suited Steve just fine.

* * *

 Selene stared at the map of the city on the wall, lips pursed thoughtfully. Something sick had taken root in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and already it felt too big for her to deal with directly. It didn’t feel homegrown, more as if a chunk of something larger had come to rest there all at once, recently. It hadn’t really started growing, yet, but it would. She could feel its potential. Whatever had landed there needed to be stopped.

_I really hope it’s something esoteric that we can get rid of relatively quietly,_ she thought. She went to the foot of the stairs.

“Ace, are you up there?” she called through the open door.

“Yeah, Mom!”

“Can you come down here for a minute, please? I need you to look at something!”

“Coming!”

She went back to eyeing the map. A few moments later, Ace clattered down the stairs with both dogs thundering along behind him. She chuckled to herself, shaking her head. The boy had never done anything quietly in his life despite all her efforts to the contrary. She, and the dogs she’d trained, could move silently as shadows when necessary. Ace…not so much. And he’d managed to teach the dogs to be just as noisy, at least when they ran with him.

“What’s up?” he asked as he got to her side.

Gesturing at the map, she asked, “Is there anything up there that jumps out at you?”

He frowned faintly and took a couple of steps closer to the wall. “Are we looking at Brooklyn? Or at Manhatt—oh, ugh!”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s that?”

He gagged and turned away from the map entirely. “There is something seriously nasty across the bridge!”

That sent both her eyebrows toward her hairline. “That bad? Can you tell what it is?”

“Gods, no.” He shuddered. “It’s malicious, though, and greedy. I kind of…feel like it’s growing? Or…um…like what they’re doing is growing? That’s…not quite right, either. Um…”

“You sense a group?”

“I…yes?” A frown creased his forehead as he considered. “Yes. It’s not…very many. Maybe less than two dozen? But…there’s seeking. I think they’re looking for more. And whatever it is they’re doing while they look is what’s causing this…grossness. Ugh. Can we go upstairs to talk about this? I’m gonna puke if I have to stand here much longer.”

“Sure, son.” She reached out to sling an arm around him, guiding him toward the stairs sympathetically. “Sorry. It’s not much more than an acute discomfort, for me.”

He wrinkled his nose. “So they’re doing nasty things to living beings, then.”

While he did tend toward far more sensitivity to such things than she, they couldn’t take that as a given. “Not necessarily. They could be doing nasty things that will affect living beings. Pollution or toxins, maybe. It could be a new drug operation.”

“Seriously, Mom?” he asked with heavy sarcasm as they stepped into the hallway. “If they’re just making drugs, it wouldn’t have drawn your attention.”

That meant he hadn’t let the nausea and general disgust stop his brain from working at the problem. She grinned at him as she closed the door behind them. “No, you’re right, it wouldn’t. Catching my attention means they’ve involved some aspect of esoterica in whatever’s going on over there. It’s still sort of vague and undefined, so they’ve either got someone working on it that knows how to Obfuscate, or they haven’t gotten very far with what they’re trying to do. I’m really hoping they just haven’t gotten very far. Amateurs can make big messes, but they’re a lot easier to deal with.”

Amateurs would have no defenses against what she could do, and that meant she wouldn’t have to expend power and resources in getting through or around them. She could swat them across their collective noses like ethereally-misbehaving puppies, apply appropriate punishments to those who deserved it, and move on. Disciplining newbies meant she might not have to deal with them ever again. She greatly preferred that kind of outcome.

Experienced troublemakers mostly turned out a whole different kettle of maggots.

“I hope so, too,” Ace agreed as he headed for the refrigerator. “You’ve been doing a lot, lately. You’re getting tired, huh?”

“Not too badly.” She smiled fondly at him, touched that he’d noticed. “I’ve tried to pace myself, since we still have tenants to find and interview, and all that.”

“And you’re thinking about taking stuff to the Greenmarket sometime soon, right? You’ve been in the workroom a lot.”

“Well, if I’m going to do it, it’ll have to be soon. Weather’s going to start getting colder, and you know that’s when the knitted stuff sells the most. I think I’m only going down there a few times, this fall.”

He looked relieved. “So you’re not gonna take stuff to sell after it’s gotten cold?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Nope. Learned my lesson. So not sitting in an outdoor booth all day in frigid temperatures, this year.”

“Oh, thank you!” he breathed, glaring at her. “So maybe you won’t get stuck in bed for days at a time, this year! Seriously, Mom, you are a crap patient, you know that?”

“I’m…uh, aware.” She coughed, almost apologetic. “Sorry, son. Not really built for it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Believe me, I know.” He stuck his tongue out at her, and she chuckled. “So I’m hoping whatever’s going on down the Lower East Side either goes away or turns out quick and easy. We have other crap to do.”

“That, we do. Like your homework.”

“We’re doing that?”

“Nope. You are.”

“I had to try!”

“Uh-huh. Break’s over. Go on.”


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

 

“Recon only, Winter Soldier,” Steve’s voice crackled over the comm crammed invisibly in his ear. “Don’t engage if you find anything, okay? Come back to base and—”

“Yes, Ma,” Bucky growled back, only slightly irritated. He knew Steve hated it when they had recon inside the States, never mind New York City, because his Golden Boy mug made him too recognizable, but he could be such a mother hen. “I promise, I’ll be back in time for dinner. Fuck’s sake, like I hadn’t done this a hundred thousand times before they even chipped you outta the ice, Cap. I know how this goes.”

“And I know how you go. Just don’t, all right?”

He sighed and snapped out the crisp, “Yes, sir!” he knew would irritate his boyfriend.

Steve didn’t rise to the bait, which he’d expected. Just as well, because the Lower East Side covered a damn lot of ground. Tony and Bruce hadn’t been able to narrow their findings down any further than that.

They said they’d keep working on it, which he knew meant they – Tony – hated the lack of precision, but for now he, Natasha, and Clint had split the neighborhood up into slightly more manageable pieces. They didn’t have anyone else experienced with covert urban recon, so they had to make do. It still meant they each had a big area to cover.

“I’ll tell ya,” he added after a long moment of walking. “This place has really changed. I’d say I don’t recognize it, except when I do. It’s weird.”

“When did you spend any time there?” Steve sounded surprised.

“Came over a few times when I couldn’t get work at the docks,” he answered absently, watching without appearing to as a small group of young toughs sized him up. “Fish market usually needed hands, or some of the shops’d have somethin’ for the day. Sometimes.”

“Oh. Huh.”

The street kids decided he wouldn’t be worth the trouble – he really wouldn’t – and faded back into a cement-paved walkway between buildings that bore only a passing resemblance to an alley. He passed it a few minutes later, looking like nothing so much as an out-at-the-heels drifter. What he wore didn’t actually look very different from the baggy, nearly worn-out things he’d stolen to cover his tactical gear just after escaping Hydra. It had worked to keep him off everyone’s radar, then, and it worked the same way now. Appearing to mutter to himself probably helped, too.

The kids remained in the not-alley, smoking, drinking, and bullshitting basically in plain sight, and he didn’t see any reason to bother with them. He noted the location, though, in case his walk-through yielded nothing and he had to canvass the locals, too. They probably wouldn’t talk to him openly, but he might get one or two to talk later, out from under the eyes of their buddies.

Not that the area had much in the way of actual alleys, anymore. He just didn’t know what to call the grass-lined walkways between six-story apartment blocks. The Cherry Street he’d once known had never looked as neat as this. At least this part of the neighborhood seemed to have gone mostly over to low-income housing huddled in the shadows of towering office buildings. It looked more than a little weird to him, the city’s poor wandering the same streets suit-clad office workers and bohemian entrepreneurs walked during the day.

He crossed Water Street and turned right, skirting the grounds of what the sign called a convent, and continued westbound. More apartment blocks to his north, but offices and shops coming up on the south. The area seemed peculiarly empty for the middle of a weekday, but other than that he hadn’t seen anything he’d consider unusual.

Things went on like that as he walked, block after block. Montgomery Street to South Street below the FDR, then westbound again. Just before he would have turned north on Clinton, he caught a silhouette half a block on that looked very out of place as it stared south toward the river.

“Now what in the hell is she doing here?” he half-murmured to himself. It came out louder than he’d intended, though, and the comm channel picked it up.

“What’s who doing where?” Steve asked.

“Have you got something interesting, Soldier?” Clint piped up, sounding nearly asleep. “Please say you have something interesting. I am dying, here.”

“You can’t be even halfway through your area yet, Hawkeye,” Nat chimed in knowingly. “And finding a perch with good sight-lines is not proper recon.”

“Hey, I’m moving around!” he objected. “Mostly, anyway!”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Enough with the chatter,” Steve broke in. “Winter Soldier?”

He’d crossed Clinton and headed straight for the woman he’d seen. She didn’t seem to notice him, just kept staring south. “Not sure. Just…a surprise, that’s all. Something I didn’t expect in the neighborhood. I’m going to check it out. Let you know if I have anything after.” He made certain to mute his mic after that.

“What are you doing in the Lower East Side, Bucky?” Selene Thomas asked when he’d gotten within comfortable speaking distance.

Okay, now that just seemed creepy. She hadn’t so much as glanced around while he’d approached. How the hell had she noticed and identified him before he’d gotten close? Thrown, he shrugged, both hands still in his pockets. “Just out for a walk, I guess. Haven’t been in this part of the island since the Forties.”

“Mmn,” she hummed. “It’s changed quite a bit, I’m sure. Urban renewal, gentrification, all that.”

“So what brings you across the river?” he asked, trying to follow her sight-line. She stood across from an FDNY station, and all he could see were its parking lot and garages. Just when he decided he’d ask, she finally turned to him and smiled a bright expression that sort of stole his breath for a moment.

“Following the scent of what might become a story,” she told him, eyes holding a knowing he instinctively shied from prying into. Which surprised him, and he spared a half-second to wonder what had gotten into him. “Or maybe not. I’m not sure I see what my source suggested I would.”

“Source?” He blinked at her, suddenly wary for a whole new reason. “I didn’t realize you’re with the Press.”

She stared at him, looking confused for just a moment before she shook her head and laughed. “Oh, good grief, no! Me, a reporter? Ugh, no, no, no. Never, ever. Loose cannons, glory hounds, and parasites, most of them, and even the well-intentioned ones are nosier than they ought to be when they’re dealing with people who deserve kid gloves. No, no. I’m a writer, not a reporter. No wildly speculative rumor-mongering from me. I leave that to the tabloids’ baby wannabes."

Huffing a faint chuckle, she continued, "When I say ‘source’, I mean a friend who was by here not long ago and told me they thought this place downright spooky, and it might make a good setting for a short piece on one of my blogs. I think I see what they meant, but I’m not sure I agree entirely. It has given me a couple of vague ideas, though.”

“Oh?” Her response seemed genuine enough that he relaxed again and gave the place another look. It hung out into the East River on a bar of reclaimed land, providing piers for a couple of ferry services and what looked like a big indoor recreational facility on the west end, though the FDNY station took up the eastern third or so.

He supposed all together, the place could look a little spooky in twilight. It had a few blind corners, some sheltered nooks and crannies, and a lot of empty space around it that would fill with shadows as the sun set or rose. He hummed. “I guess I could see it, if you squint and don’t look right at it…”

She laughed again, light and merry, and he found himself grinning back. “Yeah, well, sometimes my friend spooks pretty easy. So. Would you mind some company on your walk? I have some time to kill, if you don’t.”

“Nah, just needed to stretch my legs. You’re welcome to join me.” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he could have slapped himself. What was he thinking? He’d come down to the waterfront on Tony and Bruce’s word that the Porcupine Monsters had come out of the Lower East Side! What the hell would he do if he did trip over whatever had made the damn things, and he had Selene in tow? Stash her in an apartment building and hope nothing happened? “You want to go get a coffee, or something?”

“Do you know a place around here?” she asked, falling into step as he started moving westbound again. “I’m afraid I just kind of came straight here. Wasn’t expecting to meet up with anyone I know.”

 _Yeah, me, either,_ he thought, chuckling. “I don’t really know any places, no, but I did pass one a while back. We can loop around and go back to it.” He’d already started mentally revising his planned route, figuring the streets they’d need to follow to complete a thorough patrol and still make it look casual.

“Oh, hey, that works!”

They walked in companionable silence for a while, and then fell into easy conversation about the ‘urban renewal’ that had yanked the tenements in the area down and eventually replaced them with the oddly-shaped apartment blocks that stood all around them. She surprised him with her knowledge of the national and local processes that had shaped the area, the greed and corruption that had warped it, and the measures taken to bring it to where it all ended up.

He’d read about it, in brief overview, back when he and Steve had tried to catch up on all the history they’d missed, but hearing it the way she told it made it seem somehow more real. Maybe it had to do with walking among the buildings, but he enjoyed it enough that he found himself almost irritated with having to keep a part of his attention for scanning the area around them.

Pike Slip to Queen Street, which became Monroe Street, then north to Madison and eastbound along Madison to Grand. Then northwest on Grand, and they came across the coffee shop he remembered. They’d also covered his whole patrol without a single observation of anything he’d have considered suspicious.

Annoying as that seemed, especially since Nat had already reported nothing in her sector, encountering Selene had kept the day from being a complete wash. He excused himself to use the facilities, reported his lack of findings over the comm, and took a seat in the booth Selene had settled into, blissfully sipping her drink.

He had no idea how she could have known, but she’d chosen the only unoccupied booth in the place with clear sight-lines to the front door and windows and to the short hall that led to the restrooms and emergency exit. She’d also given him the seat that put his back against the solid brick wall. Not that it provided a hundred percent protection, as he well knew, but nothing in standard building construction really would. He couldn’t have chosen better, himself, and it impressed him all over again.

She gave him a few minutes to savor the first sips of his coffee before she set hers down on the table between them and fixed him with a single raised eyebrow. “Okay, so, I’ll put my cards on the table, first. I don’t think either of us wound up in the Lower East Side for the exact reasons we gave, I think we’re both here following leads, and I think that you’re here on Avengers’ business. Maybe something to do with the Porcupine things?”

He blinked but didn’t otherwise let his surprise show – and damn, had she surprised him! Here he’d made some effort to make sure he didn’t give anything away because he didn’t want to scare her, and she’d apparently caught something anyway. Mentally kicking himself, he took another sip before responding.

“What makes you say that?”

“Hm.” She sipped, eyeing him mischievously. “You’re a great listener, but you spent a lot of time looking around while we talked. Or…well, while I talked, anyway. You checked corners, doorways, those weird walkways between buildings, even the rooflines, all along the walk. The streets aren’t as busy around here as I’d have expected, but they weren’t exactly empty, either. I’m very sure you also gave everyone we passed at least a cursory glance.”

“Could be I’m just nervous in new places,” he suggested with a grin.

“Could be, and given your history you’d certainly have the right, but you never once gave me any reason to think you felt anxious in any way.” She smiled like a cat in the cream, sipped her coffee. “Quite the opposite. You’ve been very relaxed and controlled. Professional, even.”

So strongly did that expression remind him of Peggy that, just for a moment, he felt as if he actually sat across from the fiery Brit. Shaking his head to rid himself of the image, he considered how much he should say. Then, he remembered what else she’d said. “You aren’t here following a story lead, then?”

“Well.” She gave a minute shrug. “Depending on how it turns out, I might make it into a story. I’ve done that in the past, once the dust’s settled. But no, at least today, I’m here looking into a disturbance that came to my attention very recently.”

“A disturbance.”

She looked amused. “This conversation isn’t going to get very far if you just repeat everything I’ve said.”

That startled a chuckle out of him. “Okay, sorry. You’ve surprised me, that’s all. I can’t really say very much about it, but yes, I’m here for the team.”

“About the monsters?” She leaned forward over the table, hands cupped around her mug.

“Yes.” He let his eyes roam the café, pausing to assess each patron before moving to the next. The barista flirted quietly with a guy at the table nearest the counter. “Tony and Bruce used their path, the currents in the East River, and their observations of the things to develop some kinda formula I can’t even begin to pretend to understand. They said it pointed to somewhere in the LES as the things’ origin but couldn’t get more specific than that. So we’re here, lookin’ for…anomalies, I guess.”

“Oh!” she breathed, more a short, sharp inhalation than a word. She thumped against the back of her seat, eyes slightly widened. “Steve…said you guys thought someone’d created them.”

“He did?” _Damn, I’d have to get on him about blabbin’ to civilians, but here I am runnin’ my mouth just as much, right now. The hell am I doing?_

But she nodded slowly, frowning. “The night we found him. I don’t…” She hesitated, then grimaced, toying with her cup. “I don’t suppose any of you collected and stored any bits of the things, did you? A scale, or a tooth, or anything?”

Bruce, benched because the fighting had taken place in a heavily-populated area, had asked them to collect samples. Tony, in his scientific zeal, had even offered to fly the body of one of the smaller beasts up to the Tower. That hadn’t happened, the bodies had been taken somewhere a long way from anything and burned, but they definitely had samples. He just couldn’t figure why she’d asked. What could a writer do with a sample, and why would she bother?

“We…might,” he hedged, cautious. He liked Selene, but they’d only known her a little over a week. Enough for a landlady, not enough to trust with potentially dangerous…stuff. And not enough to inflict that possible danger upon, either. For some reason, he’d started finding it hard to remember that she was a civilian. “That’s a weird question, coming from you.”

To his surprise, she sighed, looking resigned. “I know. Remember when I told Steve that there’s something about Ace and me that Tony still doesn’t know? Something he’d experienced, himself?”

“I do.” She’d redirected the conversation pretty well after saying it, too, but it had bugged him ever since. He didn’t like not knowing about something that’d happened to Steve. Especially when Steve had been hurt.

She rubbed the bridge of her nose with one finger. “I’d hoped to let Steve remember in his own time, but I guess we’re out of that. Time, I mean. I think…I might be able to help you with finding the Porcupine Things. Maybe. If they’re linked with what I came here to find out.”

“How?”

The question hung between them while she fiddled with her coffee cup, expression thoughtful. He’d have expected misdirection at this point, or an outright lie, but he got no sense of either from her. She simply didn’t show the micro-expressions and body language he’d learned to understand when misreading them might mean significant pain or privation. She appeared relaxed, open, if maybe a little…reluctant? He could see resignation in her, too, but didn’t really understand why.

Finally, she sighed again, a small, determined huff. “It’d be easier to show you than just come out and say it. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be cryptic. I think you’ll understand once you’ve seen, but I know trust doesn’t come easily to you. I can’t blame you for that. So. I’m putting myself in your hands. Think of something, a physical item, you’ve lost or misplaced, or even deliberately hidden. Doesn’t matter how long ago. Don’t tell me about it. Just take me to the last place you know you had whatever it is.”

He stared at her. Magic tricks? She seemed like such a nice lady…he supposed that didn’t preclude a case of the crazies, though. Assuming she didn’t let whatever she thought she could do drag her into something dangerous or illegal, it was probably harmless. Except here she sat, trying to convince him to let her ‘help’ with something patently dangerous. With Ace at school, and still young enough to need his mother around. He shook his head.

“Selene, look, we’re grateful for what you did for Steve,” he began. “But this—”

She smiled, and the expression held hurt and a deep, abiding sadness. It made him falter, stole his breath. How could a kind, generous woman like her have any reason to look like that? About something he’d said?

“Please, just…humor me?” she insisted. “I wouldn’t bother, wouldn’t even have brought it up, but if what’s happening is what I think it is, it means we should work together at least a little bit. I’m not asking to chase you into a fight. I know better, I’d be worse than useless that way. I just want to help. Go ahead and make it difficult. Really hard. Let me prove myself. Please.”

Somehow, he couldn’t say no. He found himself on his Harley with Selene’s hands on his hips, wearing the spare helmet he kept in a saddlebag. He sent Steve a text to let him know he’d been delayed, but he hadn’t said why and he couldn’t explain that, either.

Maybe he just didn’t want to hear whatever Steve would say – give her a chance, or back away slowly, he didn’t even know for sure what he’d have said. He just…didn’t want to hear it. Not yet. Not when he still had no idea why he’d even agreed to this.

She’d asked him to make this test difficult, so he took her at her word. He couldn’t coddle her, not if she wanted to get some level of involved with something as dangerous as this mess with the damn Porcupines would probably turn out. He needed to know she really could help.

He chose a location not even Steve knew about, a small hideaway he’d used while he’d still been running from everyone, staying hidden while his mind shattered and knit itself back together over and over again. He’d hidden something there, something he’d never told anyone about, either. So far as he was concerned, this ‘test’ should put her wild claims to bed for good and all.

 _But why am I even considering this?_ he wondered. _This is ridiculous. She’s a civilian!_

Only she didn’t act like a civilian, now that he’d started thinking about it. Civilians tended to scream and run in all directions when the shit hit the fan. He’d seen and even used it more times than he could conveniently count, and it always made the situation endlessly more complex. Selene, and Ace by extension, had calmly hunkered down with a shotgun in their apartment building when they discovered themselves surrounded by Porcupine creatures. They’d bandaged and even sewn Steve up.

When thugs attacked Ace, Selene had done the same for him, stayed calm and coherent while he explained what had happened, and she’d even handled the police officer right out the front door once he had what he needed. Her ex showing up hadn’t cracked her calm, either. She’d been irritated but hadn’t gotten angry even when the asshole had started swinging at her, and she’d not only not gotten hit or grabbed, she’d actually just signaled for help and avoided him around the front yard until Steve and Bucky got to her. No screaming. No panicking. No fuss.

And now, she rode behind him lightly, easily, leaning into turns with him and straightening properly without any hint of panicky clutching at all, as if she’d ridden bikes her whole life. Which he couldn’t actually imagine, considering her size. But she hadn’t hesitated when he’d said he only had the Harley with him, nor when they’d gotten to it and he’d handed her the helmet. She’d just buckled it into place, tightened it down, and swung herself onto the pillion pad.  
On consideration, maybe she wasn’t quite as ‘civilian’ as he’d been thinking of her. It made him wonder. She didn’t seem military, or to have anything like the kind of training Natasha had gotten. So what did that make her? More importantly, could she really do what she’d suggested? Why did he even think that was a question?

He ended the thirty-minute ride by pulling off the side of the highway into a little gravel turnout bordered by a wooded area. Van Cortlandt Park didn’t really have the acreage of Central Park or anything upstate, but it had provided him enough thickly-wooded area to keep him hidden while still remaining close enough to Brooklyn to allow him reasonably easy access back when he’d needed it. He’d even cobbled together a camouflaged little shelter. When he shut the bike off, Selene pulled her head out of the helmet and looked around. “We’re here?” she asked.

The sun had started setting. Shadows had grown long, and under the trees it had already gone to twilight. He nodded, and she slid off the back of the bike, handing the helmet to him. He pulled his off and held one in each hand.

“Okay.” She faced the trees. “Now just…focus on what you left out here. Don’t tell me what it is. Just think about it. Really focus.”

He did, watching curiously as she stood there with her back to him, occasionally shifting the direction she faced until, almost two full minutes later, she started walking toward the trees. It took until she’d vanished in the shadows beneath them for him to realize that he couldn’t hear her moving at all. No twigs snapping, leaves crunching, dirt scuffing, nothing.

The sound of her heartbeat had faded away in seconds, even before she'd disappeared into the shadows. Only when he couldn’t hear her anymore did he realize that he’d just let a possibly mentally-unstable woman in fragile physical health walk off into the wooded park maybe an hour before full dark on an early-autumn evening wearing little more than blue jeans and a light windbreaker. Steve would kill him.

“Well, shit.” He slung the helmets over the handlebars. No one would bother his bike out here, anyway. Determined, he moved off in the direction she’d taken, a little at an oblique to the highway and strangely in exactly the right direction to get to his former hidey-hole.

He moved maybe ten yards in and paused, looking and listening for some clue to where she’d gone. Nothing. No sounds but the breeze in the trees, and not even a flash of her electric-blue jacket as she walked. So he moved farther in.

Still nothing. Frowning and becoming a little irritated, he picked up his pace, not caring whether he made noise or not. He found himself headed for his former campsite out of habit, but decided to continue on for lack of anywhere else to look.

That didn’t make any more sense than any of the other decisions he’d made in the last several hours, but he would figure it all out later. After Steve had finished raking him over the coals for being an irresponsible idiot with his new friend. He kept his head on the swivel, alert to any misplaced sound or color, and kept walking.

He found her standing right in the middle of his old campsite, over the tumbled-down ruins of his little shelter, when he finally caught up to her. He stopped at the edge of the tiny dell, more than slightly surprised to actually find her there. She turned to smile up at him.

“You didn’t need to follow,” she called softly, tone reverently hushed. “I could have found my way back.”

He frowned down at her. “It’s getting dark. I got worried.”

“I just need another minute, but maybe it’s just as well you’re here for this part.” She turned again, moved a little past the ruined shelter to where the ground rose up sharply into an earthen bank, and reached unerringly for a basketball-sized stone embedded in the dirt. Before he’d processed her action, she’d dug a finger in at the edge of the rock and pried.

It popped out of the bank with only a little effort, revealing a shadowy cavity. He’d lined that hole with flat stones himself, so he knew exactly how deep it went into the bank – not far – and she reached in and pulled her closed fist out less than half a second later. Then, she replaced the stone over the hole and came back toward him.

He stared at her as she scrambled up beside him and held her closed fist out to him. Almost without thought, he extended his hand. She dropped a cold, metallic lump into his palm.

A heavy men’s watch, hands long since stopped and with a scratched face, lay against his skin. He’d taken it from Steve’s apartment in the days after the fight on the Insight helicarrier, when he’d needed some connection to the blond man he could barely remember in vague flashes of maybe-memory.

It had given that connection, and also symbolized what he slowly became certain had been stolen from them both: time. It had already stopped when he’d taken it, which probably explained why Steve had never mentioned missing it. Bucky hadn’t even thought of it in probably a year, until Selene had asked after something he’d hidden. He knew he’d never told anyone, not even any of his legion of shrinks, about this place or the watch. It had seemed the perfect test.

A test she’d passed.

“How?” he asked, his voice almost more of a croak.

She laced her fingers together in front of her. “It’s a part of what I do. I find things. People, sometimes. Places. There’s quite a bit more to it, but that’s the part that matters, right now.”

“I might be able to find where those monsters came from,” she continued. “Maybe even where they were made. I think they’re using something that’s keeping me from being able to sense them clearly, but if they’re related to the disturbance I talked about before, I might be able to get through whatever’s trying to block me if I can get hold of a tooth or a scale, some part of one of those things.”

His hand closed over the watch, and he stared at her, completely unable to think for a long moment. He couldn’t get past standing here with the watch in his hand, never having told anyone where it could be found. She shouldn’t have been able to put that watch in his hand. Shouldn’t have been able to find this place. _Holy shit._

“How?” he repeated, and his voice at least sounded more human, this time.

She blinked, peered into his face for a moment, and then sighed. “You live in Avengers Tower with the Scarlet Witch, and this is what freaks you out? Do you need to sit down for a moment?”

Okay, she had a point. Wanda floated things around on thin air all the damn time. She also had the mildly annoying tendency to answer all your arguments before you’d made them. Her idiot brother zipped around the tower like the world’s biggest fly, though he’d learned to watch his step around Bucky since he’d caught him on a bad night and gotten clotheslined with the metal arm. He’d worn an impressive bruise for almost a month.

Hell, his boyfriend jumped out of airplanes without a parachute on the regular, damn him, and basically none of their friends could be considered “normal”. Not even Tony, Pepper, Sam, or Clint. So why did this seem any different?

He had no idea why, but it did. Maybe because it had literally come out of the blue? “No,” he answered belatedly. “No. Sorry. It’s just…what is it?”

“Come on, let’s head back. You’re right, it’s getting late.” She turned and started back toward the Harley, and still didn’t need him to guide her. “I’m not really sure what it is, exactly. I suppose most people would call it magic. Or that idiot special-snowflake term ‘magick’ with the extra K. But if they’re meaning some kind of fairy dust thing that’ll make someone fly, or weird liquid mixtures people drink for various outcomes, it’s nothing of the kind.”

She sighed. “I tend to think of it as just another sense, of pretty much everything I do as just an extension of myself – like my eyes, ears, arms, hands. Mostly, anyway. I’ve done it all my life, so I don’t really know what it’d be like without it. I notice things other people miss, touch and do things others can’t, because they don’t have the sense for it. That’s all. You see and hear better than the rest of us, right? Hit harder, lift more? It’s the same idea, more or less.”

They reached the bike, and she turned to peer into his face again. “You okay to ride? I know it’s kind of a lot, but I really didn’t expect it to hit you quite this hard.”

Her expression held nothing of maliciousness, or derision, or even the snide amusement Tony would have shown. Just the same fond concern he’d grown used to seeing in Steve’s eyes from time to time. Which may have thrown him for as big a loop as this other…thing. Shaking his head to try to clear it a little, he mustered a smile.

“Nah, I’m fine. Just surprised, I guess. Dunno why, because you’re right about my current living situation. You’d think I’d be used to…inexplicable shit. Um. Stuff. Sorry.” He felt his cheeks warm.

“It’s fine, Bucky.” She chuckled. “I told you, that kind of language doesn’t bother me. It’s the intent behind it that’s important. You don’t need to apologize.”

Except he did, he realized suddenly. “Actually…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I kinda do. When you first asked me… I mean, when you first told me about, uh, this… I kinda thought you sounded…”

“Crazy?” She grinned.

He winced and nodded. “Yeah. The whole ride up here, that’s what I kept telling myself. I mean, not quite like that, not like, looney-bin crazy. Just…”

“Crazy cat lady up the street kinda crazy, right? Harmless, but not quite all there, either?”

Put that way, it just sounded insulting. He nodded, suddenly understanding the deep sadness he’d seen in her eyes at the coffee shop. “Yeah. Like that. And I’m sorry for it. You’re right, I get it, now. I had no right.”

Her eyes held only forgiveness. “No, you didn’t, but I can’t blame you for it, either. I’ve gotten that all my life, any time I told someone. Eventually, I just stopped telling anyone unless I didn’t have any choice. It’s all right now, though. You do believe me, don’t you?”

“I believe you.” He nodded, realized he still held the watch, and waved it at her before tucking it into his pocket. “There’s no way you could have found this without…whatever it is you do. You’re the only one who even knows about it, now, and I still haven’t told you.”

“See? So it’s fine. I understand, and you’re forgiven. Now we’d better get back into town so I can get home before Ace decides I’m dead in an alley somewhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in a day! This is thanks to the fact they're both a touch shorter than previously-posted chapters as they are, were entirely too long if left mashed together, but didn't make sense to split anywhere else. I coulda left it at one short-ish chapter, but what the heck, y'all got a two-fer!


	6. Chapter 6

“She writes books and weaves tapestries, Buck.” Steve rocked back in his seat on their couch. What he’d just heard required a pretty hefty sideways shift in his thinking. “They’re good people. What you’re talking about—”

“I know it sounds crazy, Stevie.” Bucky sat beside him, elbows on his knees. “That’s what I thought when she first said it. Crazy like Old Lady Katzenberger on the first floor, remember her? The whole drive out, that’s what I’m thinking.”

He dragged one hand through his hair, a semi-subtle sign of agitation he’d never had before the War. “But she said to make it hard, really difficult, so I did. I’ve never told anyone about that place, not even you. By the time I came in, it didn’t matter so much, anymore. Never came up. But this…”

The scuffed watch lay on the side table, a painfully touching gesture, at least to Steve. He’d figured that watch had gotten lost or thrown out when he and Sam had boxed his apartment up and put it all in storage after SHIELD’s fall. He’d had so much else on his mind at the time, he hadn’t given its loss any real thought at all.

Knowing that Bucky had taken it in order to have some kind of physical tie to him made him feel complicated emotions he couldn’t process on top of the other news that had come with that knowledge. He took a deep breath and returned his attention to Bucky, who had sprawled on the loveseat, his head propped on the arm.

“Okay. So she really does what she said. You believe her.”

“Yeah. There’s no not believing, after that.”

“Then I have to believe her, too. So what’s the problem?”

“I didn’t…react very well.” Bucky rubbed his hands over his face. “Hell, I probably reacted pretty badly. I didn’t know what to think, or how to think…I mean, it felt like a stupid magic trick, except there’s no way it coulda been because nobody knew I’d ever been up there, you know?”

“Yeah. Huh.”

“But I got the feeling – and she said as much, when it came up – that she’s never actually gotten a good reaction from anyone she’s ever told. She said she’s used to bein' stared at. And she seemed kinda skittish with me, when I dropped her off. Like she’s afraid I’m gonna treat her different, now that I know.”

He frowned. “And I hate that. Wanda does weirder shit than that all the time, and I don’t even think about it anymore. Just take the coffee pot outta thin air when she’s floated it over to me, and don’t even get me started on Pietro. I dunno why I acted like such an ass, but I couldn’t get my brain to work. Wait, why d’you have to believe her, just ‘cause I do?”

“Because you’re probably the most suspicious of other people out of everyone I know, Buck.” Steve chuckled fondly. “And if she’s convinced you, it’s because you can’t see any other way she could do it. Look, just…think about it a minute, okay? She’s known right from the start who we are, but when’s she ever treated us any different from anyone else? And she could have. She’s had enough stuff happen in her life just since we met her that she could’ve gone all ‘damsel in distress’ on us and asked for help.”

Bucky snorted, flopping backward into the couch. “You’d’a fallen right in line, too, and I’d’a had t’ start findin’ excuses to keep you from going around her place again. We sure wouldn’t be movin’ into that building the end of the week. Sam, either. ‘Cept she didn’t do that. We keep havin’ to offer.”

“Uh-huh. And she keeps telling us we don’t have to. So if you believe her, then so do I. I’m not gonna be the kind of jerk that makes her prove it to me, too.” He shrugged. “She managed to surprise you, that’s all. Not everyone handles surprises well, and Selene knows you’ve got every reason to take surprises poorly. I’ll bet she forgave you right away, huh?”

The sniper slouched down into the cushions. “Yeah. Dammit. Even before I’d apologized.”

Steve frowned as a thought occurred to him. “You know, Tony _will_ be the jerk that makes her prove it to him. You know how he is about Asgardian magic.”

Bucky outright scowled. “Yeah. ‘Magic is just science I can’t explain, yet.’ You’re right. He will. And we gotta talk to him about getting one of those samples.”

“Well, we could probably talk to Bruce about that, at least. I mean, he might not be quite as skeptical. Or maybe Vision. You’d think Tony’d be more open-minded.”

“He just hates the idea he doesn’t know everything.”

“D’you wanna talk to Bruce now, though? Maybe we could take whatever he’s got to Selene this weekend.”

The brunet sat up. “You think he’d let us take it out of the lab?”

His boyfriend chuckled. “I think he’s more likely to let us take it to her once we explain the whole situation. He already knows about her, the same as everyone else on the team. We still might not be able to take it to her, but the chances are probably better with Bruce than with Tony.”

“Let’s go talk to him, then.”

Unfortunately, they found Bruce in the middle of a complex scientific argument with Tony. The point of contention seemed to be the data they’d derived from their algorithm for the Porcupine Monsters, and why it had resulted in finding absolutely nothing when they put three Avengers on the ground in the Lower East Side. Tony kept insisting that something had to be wrong with the biological extrapolations they’d applied. Bruce, quite reasonably, insisted that they couldn’t factor in whatever measures the creatures’ creator or creators had taken to ensure secrecy. There had to have been measures, or someone would have reported unusual activity somewhere.

They should, Steve reflected, have checked with FRIDAY before heading off to speak with Bruce. Now, they’d walked into the lab, and it’d only cause more questions later if they backed out and tried another time. To his surprise, Bucky continued forward in spite of Tony’s presence. The sniper leaned up against a wall, crossing his arms casually across his chest. Steve propped a hip against a lab table, waiting to see how it would all play out.

Eventually, Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tony, I’m done arguing this. We aren’t getting anywhere.”

“How long you guys been fighting this out?” Bucky broke in before Tony could respond.

Bruce didn’t react except to turn, but Tony twitched with surprise. Apparently, he hadn’t noticed them enter the lab. “Since Nat and Clint came back with nothing,” the physicist answered wearily. “We’ve gone over every possible permutation of this algorithm, but there’s no way to narrow it down any further. It all comes up the same way every time.”

“There has to be a way!” Tony insisted, scowling at the holographic depictions of God-only-knew-what that hovered in the air in front of him. “Maybe if we get better readings of the bio-data…are you sure you went down to the molecular level on those goo-samples? Because I’m pretty sure—”

“Yes, Tony. I ran every test to the finest level of detail possible with the equipment in this lab. You outfitted me, here. You know what this is all capable of.”

Steve frowned. Bruce had started to look a little green.

Bucky apparently had the same concern. “Look, hey, guys? I didn’t find anything suspicious down there, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It just means we didn’t see it. Right?”

Bruce nodded, waving a hand at Tony. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him.”

“And I have been trying to tell you that shouldn’t be possible!” the billionaire retorted, poking at a hologram. “The facility they’d need should be too big to hide! It doesn’t make sense! We shouldn’t even have to look, it should just jump up and bite us on the—”

“Pretty sure that’s what the Porcupines did, Tony,” Steve cut in, mildly amused.

Their sniper snickered. “So, we didn’t find what we expected to, this time. Thing is, while I was down there, I did find something. Someone, actually. I might have a way to at least narrow down the area we have to search. But I’m gonna need to borrow a piece of one of those monsters for a day or so.”

That got both scientists’ undivided attention. Tony even turned away from his holograms, which winked out of existence. “What for?” he asked, seeming almost belligerent.

“Some kind of testing,” Bucky shrugged. “I didn’t ask the specifics. I didn’t exactly understand the explanation I got. I’m sure there’s a chance it’ll work, though.”

“You’re sure…there’s a chance…” the billionaire repeated slowly, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “Did you really just…”

But Bruce held a hand up to cut him off. “What kind of sample are we talking about?”

“Tooth, maybe one of the scales, something easily portable. I don’t imagine we’ll need anything messy.”

“Non-destructive techniques? Nothing invasive?”

“Nope. Shouldn’t be any damage at all.”

“And you’ll be present for every step?”

“Won’t even be out of my sight.”

Steve wondered how he could promise all that, but figured he must have some idea of what Selene had in mind. He didn’t think Bucky’d lie about something this important, not to their teammates and not if they wanted the team to get familiar with her and Ace. Which, he thought, they really did.

It’d be nice if all their friends could hang out together, supers and not – or, well, whatever Selene and Ace were – without confusion and awkwardness. Even as he thought it, he realized they probably already had a recipe for confusion and awkwardness, even without…

_And I need to stop thinking about this before I overthink everything and ruin whatever it is Bucky’s doing right now. Get it together, Rogers!_ he thought, giving himself a purely mental shake.

Just in time to see Bruce reach behind him without looking to retrieve a small plastic zip-bag from the table there. He lobbed it at the sniper, who caught it deftly. “There. Tooth. Don’t destroy or lose it. Now, everybody get out of here. I want a couple of migraine pills, a cup of tea, and some peace and quiet.”

When he delivered those words in that tone, you listened to Bruce. They all piled into the hallway before Tony spoke up again. “This is ridiculous! ‘Pretty sure it just might work!’ is not sound scientific principle! What’s this friend of yours going to do with that thing? What’s the method? Do they actually have a degree, or are they just winging it?”

Bucky shrugged as he and Steve stepped into an elevator. “As long as I don’t damage or lose this thing, none of that matters unless we get some results, right?” He smirked. Conveniently, their apartment opened off the common elevator shaft, but Tony’s floors and his personal lab had their very own express elevator. He’d have to take a different car. “So if we do get something, I’ll bring my friend up to explain it to you personally, a’right? It means you’d have to be polite, though. Think you can manage that?”

“What if whatever they do changes that tooth?” the engineer protested as the doors started to close. “And I’m always polite!”

The brunet snorted derisively as their car began to move. Steve chuckled, but then frowned faintly. “Don’t you think Selene’ll succeed?”

“Sure do. Thing is, she said ‘might’. Remember, she was down there looking into something, herself. The problem she ran into is that she thinks what she’s looking for has somethin’ that’s keepin’ her from…uh, seeing, or sensing, or whatever it is she does…anyway, getting a clear read.”

He shrugged. “She’s started thinking whatever that is has somethin’ to do with our monster problem, but mostly only because we wound up lookin’ in about the same place. If they’re related, she said havin’ some bit of one of the monsters might help her bust through whatever they’re using to hide. It’d solve both our mysteries at once.”

“Huh.” The blond wrinkled his nose. “That’s awfully thin. What if they aren’t related?”

“Then she gets a read for us, or she gets nothin’.” Bucky rubbed the back of his neck. “Either way, nobody actually lost anything. I just don’t want to promise on the outside chance we wind up with a bust.”

“But you don’t think we will.”

“Nope.”

“Good enough for me.”

 

* * *

 Selene had been aware of her visitor for more than ten minutes as she worked in the kitchen, getting platters of vegetables ready for the grill. The meats had been ready, burgers, brats, chicken, kebabs, all marinated and arranged on their platters in the refrigerator since last night. Now, she wrapped ears of corn and baking potatoes in foil and folded foil packets of cubed mixed veggies in preparation for them to join the meats on the grill. For nearly the last quarter hour, she’d had an audience, silent and watching.

Selene had asked Ace to lock the dogs up in her bedroom before he went out to supervise the furniture deliveries that had arrived two hours earlier than expected. She hadn’t wanted them to spend the day barking and growling at the steady procession of arrivals. It meant that her watcher didn’t have them to contend with, and could slip inside through the glass doors without apparent notice.

They hadn’t announced their arrival, hadn’t made so much as a scuff on the floor as they entered, but she’d sensed the muted, tightly-controlled aura as it dropped lightly into the garden. Her Wards had pulsed a dubious warning, suggesting that the new arrival didn’t harbor ill intentions – they wouldn’t have gotten through so easily, if they had – but might turn out dangerous, after all. Given who she thought had entered, it made sense.

She couldn’t help a faint chuckle, though, when time stretched and brought no greeting. So that’s how they’d play it, huh? _I would have let you surprise me last week, Ms. Romanoff,_ she thought as she sprinkled salt and pepper into another vegetable packet. _But last week, I didn’t need your team to at least consider working with me. Now, I do, so I have to impress you all. I wonder if Bucky’s told you what I showed him the other day._

She set the shakers aside and sealed the packet, adding it to the pile. “There.” Reaching to the top of the refrigerator, she pulled the big box of matches down. “These need to roast, so I’m going to start the grill. Would you be so kind as to bring these platters out for me, Ms. Romanoff? It’ll be a little before the coals are ready, but not too long.”

And she walked outside to set the grill alight. Let the Widow chew on that, and help if she chose.

To her credit, the flame-haired woman only took a minute or so to appear with a vegetable platter in each hand. “Where would you like these?” she asked nonchalantly, and Selene had the distinct impression of a cat caught tripping up, but pretending they’d meant to do it all along. She smiled and gestured at the table she’d had Ace set up beside the grill last night.

“Just there’s fine. Thank you.”

The platters settled gently. “I brought pirozhki.”

“Ooh, thank you! Savory, or sweet?”

“Some of both.”

“Ah, you’ll have to point out which are which. I’m not very familiar. Thank you for coming. Glad to have you.”

The Widow smiled as if she doubted that and went back inside for the last tray. When she came back out, she set it with the others and leaned a hip against the table. “It surprised me when the boys extended the invitation.”

That statement held a wealth of unspoken questions. Selene stirred the coals, making sure they burned evenly. “They’re friends. I thought the other Avengers might like to get to know who they’re hanging out with, lately. They told me how Mister Stark handled it.”

“Mm, you should know you’re signing up for a whole lot of weird, claiming Captain America, the Winter Soldier, and the Falcon for friends.”

“Oh no. I’m not claiming them.” Selene chuckled and laid the coal-tongs aside to turn and face her guest directly. “It’s true my son and I helped Captain America a little, but it’s Steve, Bucky, and Sam who’ve become friends to us. I’m aware of the ‘weird’, too. It makes no difference to us. I consider ‘normal’ entirely overrated. They’re beginning to find out how much weird they’ve signed up for, befriending us.”

“You don’t treat them the way most people do,” the spy observed. “It’s probably a big relief, especially for Steve and James.”

“I’m sure it is. If you’re wondering whether that’s going to change, and I’m going to suddenly start demanding pictures with them to post to my social media, or something equally ridiculous, you shouldn’t worry. I prefer to define myself, and let my work stand or fall on its own merits. It wouldn’t really be mine, if I did it any other way. I’m not going to use them.”

One reddish-brown eyebrow quirked upward, skeptical. Selene couldn’t really blame her, all things considered. The media, especially celebrity circles and gossip columns, were often awash with pictures of the Avengers with attention-seeking fans and leeches. It had probably been difficult for any of them to meet “normal” people without getting turned into objects of fame, rather than the people beneath the masks and uniforms. It had always struck her as sad that no one seemed to care why they’d chosen to wear masks while they saved the world, even though everyone knew their identities.

“And the rest of us?” The redhead examined the nails of one hand as if she didn’t care what answer she received.

“Well, I hope I can get to know the rest of you, as well, if you’re all so inclined.” The coals had almost ashed over, now. Selene reached for the platter of potatoes. “I’m most concerned that my friends feel comfortable. If that means I get to know new people at the same time, I’m certainly game. I’m also aware of the information about yourself that you dumped under the public eye when you exposed Hydra within SHIELD. I can only imagine the kind of courage that took. I’d be happy to get to know the woman who has that courage.”

“We’ll see.” But the spy offered a hand. “Natasha.”

“Selene,” she smiled, shaking hands. “Thank you for coming. I really am glad to have you here.”

“Hey, Mom?” Ace’s voice floated out of the kitchen, and then he stuck his head out the door. “Oh…I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone else had gotten here, yet.”

Selene grinned and beckoned him out. “Ace, this is Natasha Romanoff. Natasha, my son, Asa.”

The redhead smiled and accepted another handshake. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you,” she practically purred.

Ace returned the smile, coloring faintly. “Hi, Miss Romanoff. Call me Ace, everyone does. It’s really good to meet you.”

“I understand you’re a musician,” Natasha crooned.

Selene didn’t bother to hide her grin as Ace’s color heightened just a shade. The spy couldn’t know it, but her ‘testing’ would find no purchase, there. The blushing had to do with her recognition of his talent. He nodded, the same self-conscious bob every teenager everywhere used under scrutiny.

“Yes, I am.”

“Think we can talk you into performing for us, today?”

He blinked, and then positively beamed. “Maybe! I’ve got a friend from school who might be willing to sing with me, too.” He turned his attention to his mother. “That’s why I came back here, Mom. Er, well, part of why. Steve, Bucky, and Sam are here. They brought some stuff for the barbecue. I left it on the table. Can Gen come over, though? I guess her Dad’s being a jerk again, and her mom’s at work ‘til late.”

“A jerk as in he’s giving her a list of chores to do, or a jerk as in he’s started drinking again?” Selene frowned. Geneane and Ace had become fast friends years ago, though they’d become closer in the last two or three, and Selene had begun thinking of the young woman as a second child of her own.

“She didn’t…” Ace paused, frowning as he checked his phone. “She didn’t exactly say, but I got the impression he’s drinking. She’s hiding in her room, right now.”

“Ugh, that girl needs to get a place of her own, poor thing. Tell her to get her butt over here, then, and she can stay over if she wants to.” She placed the lid on the grill with a little more force than strictly necessary. “We have more than enough, and we’ll set up the rollaway. Go get her, help her carry whatever she needs to bring. Take the dogs with you, please. They need to walk some energy off before we can let them out for the party.”

Ace beamed at her and stepped over to envelop her in a bear hug. “Thanks, Mom! I’ll be back in like an hour!”

She chuckled, suppressing a wistful nostalgia for the little boy he had been as he vanished through the door. Natasha, she noticed, eyed her with something that might be surprise. Or suspicion. Probably suspicion. It seemed as if the original female Avenger handled most things with suspicion. Selene returned her attention to the spy and gestured toward the kitchen. “It’ll be a half hour before we put the corn in. I’ve got a lovely Pinot Grigio cooling in the fridge. Interested in a glass?”

 

* * *

Bucky saw the last of the delivery crews off with some measure of relief. They’d asked FRIDAY to arrange for vetted Stark employees to pick up their furniture purchases and deliver them to the new address, in large part to keep the place from becoming public knowledge for as long as possible. They may have been Stark-vetted and sworn to keep their mouths shut, but they still tended to stare.

He’d gotten used to a certain level of attention being paid to him and Steve when they went out in public, but it still made his skin crawl. They knew the new address wouldn’t stay off the radar forever, not with paparazzi being what they were, but they’d all agreed to try to keep it as low-key as possible. The neighbors wouldn’t be very happy if news trucks and pap vehicles took up all the parking in the street. So far, no one had managed to notice just who had moved into the building. They meant to keep it that way as long as they could.

Not living there all the time would help throw the paps off, too, the sniper reflected as he turned to go back into the building. He ducked into their new apartment briefly, glancing around each room as he passed through. They’d gotten everything roughly placed where it belonged, though a lot of it still needed assembly. Satisfied that they’d made enough progress for the time being, he made sure he’d pocketed his new keys and headed back to the front door. The unfamiliar splash of color in the front room made him pause, though, to look again.

There, in soothing prominence against the wall, hung the tapestry Bucky had admired in Selene’s workroom. A broad thread of silvery-grey meandered through blended swathes of blues, greens, and purples, drawing the eye and somehow inducing a warm sort of calm. Pinned to a bottom corner, a short note welcomed them home. He stood there, looking and feeling things he couldn't name, for a few minutes. Then, aware they had somewhere to be, he turned and moved into the hallway, closing and locking the door behind him.

Two flights up, he found Steve and Sam engaged in a discussion of another tapestry, a bit longer and narrower, that hung in the entryway. This one gave a somewhat abstract impression of a cloud-strewn sky, the blue, white, and grey swirls grounded by a swathe of earthy greens near the bottom. It, too, had a note pinned to its bottom that simply read, “Welcome home.”

“Hey,” he broke into their conversation, eyes still roaming the new hanging. “We’re about due downstairs.”

“Oh! Right!” Sam glanced almost reflexively at his phone, checking the time.

“Did you get them sent off okay?” Steve asked as they headed for the elevator.

Bucky gave him a flat look. “They were already happy to take off and end their shifts, Stevie,” he pointed out. “Not like any of ‘em was interested in stayin’. Just had to make sure they all made it out the door and into their trucks.”

“Here’s hoping the change of address doesn’t wind up on some reporter’s desk five minutes from now,” Sam muttered, though both super-soldiers caught it. “Do we know who’s coming to this thing?”

“I think the idea kind of excited the twins,” Steve told him. “And you know Clint.”

The medic chuckled. “Yeah. He’s always up for free food. Like he doesn’t live – and eat – in one of the most expensive high rises in the world on someone else’s dime. He’s been getting SHIELD and Avengers hazard pay for how long, now?”

“I’m pretty sure most of it’s a front he puts up,” Bucky suggested as the elevator door opened. “He trains as hard as any of the rest of us.”

The Thomas’ front door stood open, so they went cautiously into the front room. “Knock, knock!” Sam called into the apartment as Steve and Bucky milled a little uncomfortably near the door.

“In the kitchen!” Selene called back promptly. Bucky relaxed, surprising himself with how uncomfortable he’d been with stepping into her domain without express permission. He had another surprise when they got to the doorway to find Natalia seated at the laden table with Selene, half a glass of wine in front of each woman, looking more comfortable and relaxed than he’d ever seen her outside of the Tower.

“Get everything moved in okay?” their hostess asked, beaming up at them.

“Well, it’s all in the apartments, anyway,” Sam answered with a grin. “Getting it set up, though…”

She waved a hand at him. “Pish, the setting up always takes me forever to get done. I’ll trip over boxes for weeks before they piss me off and I finally get them unpacked and put away. Ace should be back with the dogs in twenty minutes or so. He’s bringing a friend over who’s…hm, had some family problems, today. She’s coming to stay with us for a bit, to get some time outside that house.”

A timer on the counter went off, then, and Selene got to her feet. “Gotta add the corn to the grill. Guys, get yourselves a drink from the fridge, get off your feet for a little bit. Take a breather. When you’re ready, come on out to the patio and I’ll show you where I want the tables.”

“She trusts you all a great deal,” Nat said as soon as the other woman had disappeared through the back door. She tipped her head at the wine glass still sitting on the table. “She left her drink here, unguarded.”

“Hey, Nat,” Steve sighed, a little resigned.

But Bucky saw what Nat hadn’t said. “She trusts you, too, then,” he pointed out. “She also left it sitting right there where you can reach it.”

“Mmn.” She hummed noncommittally, sipping from her own glass. “So, when do I get to see the new digs?”

“When they’re unpacked and ready, and not a jumbled mess of disassembled furniture and boxes,” Sam told her firmly. He wore a grin, though, softening the words. She smirked back at him, and Bucky figured the medic had just earned himself an unexpected visit from the spy who behaved more like a cat than anyone really should.

They got sodas and a beer for Sam from the fridge, but the movers had done most of the work, and Bucky and Steve didn’t really feel the little work they had done, so the two super-soldiers went out into the garden with their drinks. Selene had just set the lid back on the grill, and she turned to smile at them. As it often did, the expression struck him with the light it radiated. Not for the first time, he wondered how she had remained single for so long.

_Then again,_ he thought as she pointed out where they would find the tables, and how she wanted them arranged, _maybe she hasn’t been single the whole time since she left that asshole. We still don’t know all that much about her. Maybe she’s had boyfriends, since. Can’t figure how no one stuck around, though. Unless…maybe the magic thing?_

It didn’t take long to get the garden set up the way she wanted, since it only involved two tables and a dozen or so chairs. Nat and Sam had moved outside to sit with them, chatting lightly, when Dusk and Sable trotted happily through the doorway and started making the rounds, greeting everyone with enthusiastic licks, waving tails, and affectionate leaning. Sable settled against Natasha’s left leg, already leaning adoringly into the spy’s scratching when voices from the kitchen alerted Bucky to Ace’s arrival with the friend he’d apparently gone to retrieve.

A strangled gasp from the doorway drew his attention just a moment later. A young woman with long, magenta hair stood there, wide-eyed and frozen with her mouth partly open. She stood nearly as tall as Ace, who had stopped behind her. He wore a mischievous smirk, and apparently poked her in the back. She jumped and threw an elbow backward.

“You did not tell me your Mom’s friends were the frickin’ Avengers, you jerk!” she hissed.

Ace must have expected it, because he side-stepped the elbow and slid through the doorway, snickering. “That’s ‘cause here, they’re just our friends,” he answered, throwing a grin at the group at the table as he made his way to his mother. He waved the basket, neatly done up in ribbons and cellophane, he held in one hand. “Mrs. Abernathy up the street stopped me to bring this to you. She said it’s to thank you for your help.”

Selene chuckled. “Introduce Gen around, put that in my workroom, and quit being a jerk to your friend,” she mock-ordered. “She’s right. Jerkface.”

He laughed and turned to make introductions. Far from the frightened mouse Bucky had somehow expected, the young woman seemed friendly and outgoing. She startled Nat by taking the chair beside hers. In moments, the two had started a conversation about being surrounded by “bonehead guys”, and the sniper found himself amused. Natalia didn’t usually warm to people very quickly, if ever, but she certainly looked like she had, this time.

The front buzzer sounded, and Ace darted off to answer it. A moment later, Clint appeared in the kitchen doorway with two gigantic tubs of store-bought salads – what looked like potato salad, and maybe something with pasta in it – in his hands. Wanda and Pietro stood behind him, looking around with avid curiosity. This must be, Bucky realized, the first time either of them had seen anything like a “normal” American home up close.

“If we’re gonna eat right away, they’re fine,” Clint said, hefting the salad tubs. “But if it’s gonna be a while, they should probably go in the fridge.”

“Ace, honey!” Selene called with a smile. “Would you please help Mister Barton find a place for those in the fridge? We’re probably a half hour out, yet.”

“Sure, Mom!”

Clint turned and vanished back into the kitchen, leaving Wanda and Pietro hovering uncertainly in the doorway. Sam beckoned them out. “C’mon out here, you know most of us!” The medic started the introductions, including Clint and Ace when they rejoined the group. “And that’s our hostess, Selene Thom—”

A startled squeak interrupted him, drawing every eye to Wanda. She stood there, blue eyes wide and fixed on Selene, who looked up from her examination of the coals. “Wha—oh.” She lowered the grill lid and turned a kind smile on the younger woman, who appeared ready to bolt at any moment. Pietro looked between the two, frowning and tense, as if he didn’t understand what had frightened his sister but intended to protect her. Bucky tensed, too, ready to stop the kid if he popped off.

“It’s all right, Miss Maximoff,” their hostess soothed. She made a small gesture, a flick of her hand, then laced her fingers together in front of her chest and bent forward at the waist in a sort of abbreviated bow. “Be at peace and welcome in our home.”

Bucky felt the small hairs at the back of his neck stir at the gesture, and he had the strangest feeling that something had just happened. Nothing appeared to change, though, except that Wanda’s fear seemed to melt away. A kind of startled confusion replaced it, and Pietro relaxed as Selene stepped forward to shake hands with the three newcomers. In no time, the easy, comfortable atmosphere had returned as everyone chose or replaced drinks and settled around the table.

Then Selene asked Bucky and Steve to bring the platters – whole platters! – of meats out to the table beside the grill, and Ace and Gen put their heads together to confer quietly. Bucky’d just taken a swig of beer when the two moved to the end of the table, exchanged a meaningful look, and began singing.

The sniper had to swallow his mouthful of beer very carefully. Whatever he’d expected from a couple of high school kids’ singing…it hadn’t been what they did. In fact, these kids had spent the whole hour since they’d walked into the house blowing his unconscious expectations out of the water.

He didn’t really recognize any of what they sang, but most of it seemed in the same vein of what he’d liked before the War. Jazz, mostly, a couple of what he’d call ballads, though they probably had their own genre. He thought he’d heard one or two on the radio recently, though what they sang sounded a little different and he couldn’t be sure.

Everything they sang came off amazing. From time to time, he even forgot they weren’t actual professionals. If someone had told him – hell, Steve _had_ told him – they’d sound this good, he wouldn’t have believed it. After a while, he lost himself in the music.

He caught Steve watching him with a faint half-smile between songs. Raising an eyebrow, he allowed one corner of his mouth to lift upward. _What?_

Steve chuckled softly and tilted his head at the duo who had just launched into a new song. _They’re good, aren’t they?_

Bucky could only raise both eyebrows and nod. _Yeah, they’re good._ It was only truth. Gen sang well, strongly, and they kept their harmonies tight. Ace had a rich, warm bass that had really shocked him when it spiraled effortlessly up into a high alto. He nodded again. _They’re damn good._

At that, the blond’s smile became a goofy, adoring grin that made him snort softly and grin back. _You’re such a sap._

Steve only shrugged.

The kids sang for maybe a half hour, progressing through ten or twelve entirely a capella songs, before Selene declared the meats ready. A rush for the food table ensued, and Bucky was delighted to discover that Natalia had brought pirozhki. He might have overfilled his plate and required a second one, which Steve brought him without comment. Nobody else said anything either, though the flame-haired spy smirked at him. He categorically did _not_ color slightly.

What had seemed like a ridiculous amount of food just an hour before began to disappear with startling rapidity. Steve and Bucky, of course, ate like the super-soldiers they’d become. Pietro ate even more than they did, given his metabolism, and ate faster, too. Clint ate almost as much, despite not having a personal history of scientific experimentation. He just liked to eat.

Everyone eventually sat back in their seats, groaning with satisfaction. Even Selene had eaten enough for Bucky to call it a full meal, though she’d still had far less than anyone else – even Natalia. He realized with that thought that he’d watched everything their new landlady had put in her mouth the same way he’d watched Steve eat, back when he’d been small and sickly. The sniper shook his head at himself. He’d been surprised again and again by how quickly he’d come to trust this woman and her son, sometimes even against his better judgment. He had no idea why, except that she just seemed so easy to trust. Like that day at the park, when she’d revealed her ability – magic? power? – to find things…

The thought led inevitably to another: she’d said what she’d done that day was only part of what she could do. So what more could she do? Move things the way Wanda did? He didn’t even really know what to consider possible. Could she have done something to make them trust her so easily? And if she had, why? What did she want? Suddenly, the excellent meal lay like a lump of lead in his gut. Had he made a monumental mistake, here?

He looked around, hoping to see something, anything, to show him he hadn’t somehow endangered Steve by his carelessness…only to catch Selene watching him with a small, understanding smile that also held the same sadness he’d seen at the coffee shop the other day. After just a split second, she nodded toward the kitchen and rose to collect a few of the platters and emptied food containers that had migrated to the table they all sat around. Feeling strangely nervous, he nodded back and reached for a couple more. “Here, Selene, let me help you with that,” he offered aloud.

Immediately, Steve leaned forward, too. “I’ll help…”

“It’s all right, Steve. Bucky and I can handle it,” she smiled at him. “I just want to move the empty things. We’ll leave anything with food still in it until we’re ready for dessert. You can help us clear up later.”

_Damn, she’s smooth,_ the sniper thought as his boyfriend settled back into his chair. An icy finger trailed down his spine. _This woman is dangerous. How the hell did I miss that?_

In the kitchen, Selene set her burden on the counter and tossed the disposable empties into the trash before she turned to face him, leaning a hip against the cabinets. “I’m sure you must have a lot of questions,” she said sympathetically. “I don’t blame you. I promise, we’ll talk after everyone’s gone. I’ll answer everything then.”

Suddenly very conscious of the bagged tooth in his pocket he nodded. “I do have questions. Most of them can wait that long. I just…” How the hell did he ask about this? Why hadn’t he ever questioned Wanda about her powers beyond making sure she stayed the hell out of everyone’s heads? “Did you…do anything to Steve, Sam, or me the night we met you?”

He suppressed a wince. That had come out sounding a whole lot worse than he’d intended.

“Did I…” At first, she looked confused. Then understanding dawned and turned into kind sympathy. “No. Not the way you mean. Ace and I treated Steve’s injuries that night, Ace more than me, and that’s all.”

“Ace?” he asked, startled and determined not to show it. For some reason, he hadn’t even considered that the kid might have some kind of…of…power. Now she’d said it, he felt stupid. It only made sense, Ace being her boy, so very like her, and all. Of course there’d be a chance he’d have…whatever she did.

She nodded. “Yes. He’s a Healer. I have some ability for it, but he’s leaps and bounds better than me when it comes to injuries and illnesses. He—” Breaking off, she glanced out at the garden. “We’ll talk about it later, okay? Before you ask, no, it isn’t really a secret. I’m not trying to keep anything from your team, and you can tell them anything you hear tonight, I don’t care. It’s just that answering questions from seven different directions would make a mess of everyone’s understanding. It’d be easier for all of us if you, Steve, and Sam just explain to them.”

He considered that for a moment. Natalia would probably be suspicious, Clint overly curious, and Pietro might get aggressively annoying. He had no idea how Wanda would react, given the odd little scene between her and Selene when they’d first met. Which reminded him he wanted to ask about that, too. Taking a breath, he nodded. “That’s fair. I can wait.”

“Thank you.” She smiled, genuinely grateful.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: There was a small error I didn't notice when I posted the last chapter that resulted in that chapter getting labeled "Chapter 7" when it was actually Chapter 6. It's fixed now, but if you thought you read 7, I'm afraid it was actually 6. This is the real 7! (And thank you to Lindjo for pointing that error out!)

* * *

“Got her all set up?” Selene asked her son as she settled into her armchair with a cup of coffee. Most of the party had been seen off home with containers of leftover food over the last half hour, and Barnes, Steve, and Sam had remained to help clean up. Not that very much remained to do, especially with six sets of hands to get it done. Ace had vanished into the back of the apartment with Gen when the coffee got started, though he returned just as they sat down.

The young man nodded as he folded himself into a seat on the floor against her armchair. “I get the feeling she didn’t sleep very well, last night. She said she just wanted a shower and sleep. There were a lot of empty bottles and things lying around when I got there, this afternoon.”

His mother frowned. “He’s getting worse.” The frown remained for a moment, and then she looked at her three remaining guests. “All right. I imagine the three of you have some questions for me. I know Bucky does.”

Sam blinked, startled. “Uh, questions?”

“We didn’t get a chance to tell you,” Bucky said, grimacing. “Sorry, Selene. We gotta bring Sam up to speed, first.”

“Of course.” She chuckled. “It’s not as if you lot have anything else to do besides gossip about me, after all. I’m going to ask you to tell him, though. It might come easier from you.”

Ace stared at his mother, mouth hanging open in surprise. “Wait, what?” he blurted. “Seriously?”

Selene eyed him with amusement. “Yes, seriously. It’s necessary, now.”

His eyes widened. “Really?”

Sam looked around the room, feeling more than a little in the dark. “What…are we so excited about?”

Barnes answered, explaining how he’d met up with Selene during their canvass of the Lower East Side, and the way that meeting had gone. Sam felt his eyebrows rising toward his hairline long before the sniper got to the end of the story, but he really couldn’t have said exactly why. The story seemed fantastic, but hearing it from the former assassin meant that he couldn’t dismiss it as a joke. Not with every expression in the room perfectly serious and Barnes looking almost as incredulous as he felt. Yet, if  _he_  had believed her enough to make an impromptu trip to the middle of nowhere north of Queens…

It felt like a lot to take in. He knew Barnes wouldn’t leap to believe in something like this, that he’d have argued firmly against it unless faced with overwhelming proof. Which, apparently, Selene had willingly offered. One look at Steve’s face said he’d already heard the story and decided to back his boyfriend up. That left Sam staring, confused, at their landlady. She seemed so normal _…_

“Look, Sam,” Barnes insisted. “We’ve been living and working with a woman who uses the codename ‘Scarlet Witch’. She puts visions into people’s heads and floats the damn coffee pot all over the kitchen, for pity’s sake. What’s to say this isn’t possible, too?”

“No, no, you’re right.” The counselor in him couldn’t let the sniper believe he’d dismissed the story. “It’s…just… I just need a minute to wrap my brain around this. Nothing against you, Selene, it’s…you’re so…”

She wore an amused smile. “Normal?”

Okay, put like that, it made him look ridiculous. They sat in her living room, discussing this over coffee. Perfectly normal setting. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Something like that.”

“What if I told you that literally everyone has at least the potential for these abilities, in varying degrees, born into them right from the start?” she offered. “And that it’s only a question of genetic expression, circumstances, and upbringing that prevents more people from actually tapping into that potential to use it?”

“Wait, everyone?” Barnes asked, leaning forward over his coffee cup.

Selene nodded. “Everyone, to some extent. I’d imagine you and Steve probably have even more potential than most, thanks to the serum. Did any of you feel anything when I met Wanda?”

They looked at each other, shrugging. Sam had noticed the exchange and thought it a little weird, but that also described Wanda, so he hadn’t put too much thought into it. He’d been impressed that Selene had known how to calm her, though. The Sokovian woman could be…a little excitable.

Barnes rubbed the back of his neck. “I felt…I don’t know what. Something. My hair stood up, kinda, like when I know I’m being watched.”

“I…mighta felt a little tingle, I guess. I was too worried about Pietro to pay much attention,” Steve added.

“So the two of you are at least a little more sensitive,” Selene nodded again. “You sensed it when I goosed my Wards so she could read them, and let her get a feel for who and what I am. That doesn’t mean you’re going to start hearing thoughts or floating coffee pots tomorrow, of course. It would depend upon your potential before the serum and whether or not you’d ever learned to use…well, whatever you had. And, just like with anything else, the specific possibilities are different from person to person. You’re all familiar with the idea that there is at least some truth at the foundation of most myths?”

Given American folktales, which he’d heard over and over again from his mother and grandfather, Sam had some familiarity with the concept. He’d never really given it much thought, though he knew it made sense. Like the kids’ game ‘Telephone’, true stories got changed and exaggerated until they had only a passing resemblance to the real events that had inspired them. He nodded slowly, still trying to process what he’d heard. Selene just…didn’t look like a witch. Or act like…

But then, what the hell did he know, really?

Steve had nodded, too. Which made sense, since he lived as the foundational truth of an American myth. The poor guy had been pigeonholed into the Spirit of America while he’d slept in ice, and awakened to a world – and especially a country – with ideas about him that had nothing to do with him. So…okay. Sam could see Barnes' point. He’d been living with legends personified for the last two years. Hell, Thor made up part of a whole pantheon of legends. He could at least shut up and listen to whatever Selene had to say.

“Ace and I are what the legends of witches and sorcerers, grannies-in-the-woods and fairy godmothers, evil stepmothers and black knights started from,” their hostess continued. She paused, then grimaced faintly. “Well, some of them, anyway. We’re as human as anyone in this room, we just have access to a second set of senses and learned to use them.”

She sighed softly. “Over the millenia, we’ve been village wisewomen and shaman, priests and priestesses, oracles and healers. Unfortunately, like any human all over the world, some of us have used the extra ability to do harm rather than good.”

Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “In time, they became the evil witches and wizards, sorcerers and sirens who opposed the heroes in the fairytales. They also came to represent all the fears of the dark and unknown that have driven humankind forever. Those who recognize their gifts, these abilities, and actually learn to use them are relatively rare to begin with. When most people, especially in large groups, start to fear something…”

“They hunt it down,” Barnes rasped, scowling. “Wipe it out, if they can.”

Selene nodded solemnly. “So there aren’t many like Ace and me, who learned the use from our family, anymore. Most don’t have the faith in their abilities that would allow them to use them. Many more don’t have much strength, so they perceive these extra senses…sort of dimly. A vague feeling here, the scent of something, wisps of visions and shadows they tell themselves are only dreams.”

“So…the ones that can use them…” Steve said slowly, frowning faintly. “Use all of them? Or just…some things?”

“You’re asking if everyone can do everything?”

He nodded, but he looked a little confused. “I…yes, I think so.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Can you make the same shots Bucky does? Or can Bucky throw your shield so it bounces off four or five opponents and returns to him the way you do it?”

Sam saw the answer as the super-soldiers exchanged a look and shook their heads at her. Ace confirmed his thought from where he sat sprawled with the dogs on the floor. “Everybody’s better at different things. I’m a Healer, and I’m really good at it.” His dark eyes went to Steve with a slightly cocky grin. “Your serum had most of your injuries handled, but the poison from those Porcupine things gave you some trouble. I filtered it outta your blood before I sealed up the worst stuff, and you never even knew it, did ya?”

The blond’s eyes widened. “I didn’t even think about it!” he agreed, obviously stunned. “And I know they got me with at least a couple scales even before the explosion. It took Tony and Bruce an hour to synthesize an anti-toxin for that stuff, even after they got it identified. You filtered it out?”

“Um…yeah.” The young man’s cheeks colored faintly. “It’s…sort of hard to explain, but I pulled it out in a kind of…um…plasma? Through your injuries.”

Suddenly, Sam realized he had the answer for something that had bothered him. “This is why you don’t look like you were attacked a week ago!” he blurted. The kid blinked at him, then smirked.

“Yep! Except that it’s a lot harder to heal myself, so Mom had to help. I couldn’t quite get rid of everything, either, because most people don’t heal that fast. I had to have something to show, if the police came back around to ask more questions.” He rubbed Sable’s head where it lay in his lap. “So, yeah. I’m a Healer. Mom kinda sucks at it, though.”

That startled a laugh out of Selene. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Smartass. He’s right, though. I’m really limited in the healing department. I can follow what he does enough to guide him, and channel energy to him, but I’m not good for much as far as actually doing. Manual, basic First Aid, and holding things stable so they don’t get any worse. My talents lie elsewhere.”

“Where?” Barnes asked abruptly. He sat tensely beside Sam, and the medic wondered what bothered him.

“I’m a Guardian.” The answer came simply, serenely. She leaned forward to set her empty cup on the table. When she settled back into her seat, her eyes held a strange kind of sadness as she met and held each of their gazes in turn. “It makes me a sort of jack-of-all-trades. Hm. Most trades, maybe. I can find things. Or people. I have a sense of when a threat’s landed nearby—”

“Then why didn’t you get out the night we met you?” the sniper demanded bluntly. “Why didn’t you sense the Porcupine things?”

“I did. I couldn’t really say that at the time, though.” A resigned ache passed through her expression as she replied. “I’m meant to protect. I have a sense of when a threat’s looming, of when I’m needed, and the means to respond when necessary. We stayed because I knew we’d be needed. I didn’t know how or why, just that we needed to stay here. It turned out right.”

Sam felt as if he’d begun to get a handle on all this. It still felt weird, though, and he used the moment of silence that descended to try to identify what didn’t seem right. He watched as Ace flicked a glance at his mother, appearing just slightly worried, and the pieces fell into place.

“So, uh…” he began, realizing only as he spoke that his question might come out more than a little insensitive. “Okay, I really don’t mean to be rude, here, but I don’t understand. Ace, you heal people.”

The young man nodded.

“But your Mom has some serious health issues.”

“Yeah. It…doesn’t work like that.” The kid sighed, and in that moment, the counselor could see the weight on his still-broadening shoulders. “What I do is return the body to its natural state. I heal trauma, damage caused by outside forces. Cuts and breaks, bruises, even viruses and bacteria. Mom hasn’t had a cold or flu since I got strong enough to kill ‘em off. The thing is, Mom’s problems are all internal.”

“He means that my body fights itself,” Selene added. “When external forces have harmed a body, Ace can take care of it. But when the body malfunctions, stops utilizing insulin properly or starts chewing on its own brain, that’s still its natural state. Things like cancer, Cystic Fibrosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Diabetes, they’re all coded right into the body. He can’t rewrite DNA. It is what it is, and he can’t change those things.”

_Sweet baby Jesus, that’s gotta suck,_ the medic thought as Ace leaned a little more toward his mother. _The ability to fix what’s broken, except when it isn’t really broken so much as just grown wrong. He’s gotta watch his Mom suffer that bullshit, and he can’t do a damn thing about it but keep her from collecting external complications. Damn._

Barnes flopped backward into the couch as if someone had cut the strings of tension that had held him upright. “Okay, so, what do you do, besides find things?” he asked.

“I protect.” She smiled. “For instance, nothing and no one with ill intent can get into this building, not even through the garden. Nothing and no one not expressly invited will get in without alerting me to their presence. None of you will ever have to worry about burglary, here. And I can make this building very hard to find, if I need to.”

Ace grinned. “I can do some of that, and I’ve done it to my room. But nobody gets by Mom’s Wards. If she doesn’t want you inside ‘em, you won’t get inside.”

“If you’ll accept them,” she added with a faintly amused glance at her son, “I can even make protections for you to carry. I strengthened the one Ace wears, now that he’s been attacked. They won’t get another easy run at him, and I’ll know it if anyone tries. I’ll also be able to find him quickly.” She paused, hesitating for just a moment. “I also made sure that the two who attacked him will never do anyone harm ever again except in self-defense.”

The sniper beside him tensed again, snapping upright. “How?”

“She did a Binding.” If Ace’s grin looked a little fierce, who could blame him? “No harm to anyone, not even themselves.”

_Holy shit, the way that guy couldn’t take a swing at Bucky…was because of Selene?_ Sam thought, stunned. He glanced at his teammates to find Steve staring, wide-eyed, and Bucky wearing a blank stone-face. She’d shocked them both. They’d actually seen evidence of what she’d just claimed, and their expressions made it clear they’d made the connection.

“No harm…ever?” Steve asked slowly.

“Not unless they have to defend themselves, and then only as long as necessary,” she confirmed.

“How long will that last?” Barnes asked, sounding a little disturbed.

She shrugged again. “Until I remove it, or they find someone stronger than me to break it.”

“Not very likely,” Ace chimed in. “There’s no one stronger than Mom.”

“Tchah, what’ve I said about that?” she disagreed, reaching out to flick the tip of his ear. “There’s always someone bigger and stronger out there. We just haven’t met them. Don’t get cocky.”

The teenager winced and laid a hand over his ear, unrepentant. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“So, wait, are you saying you have offensive capabilities, too?” Steve asked suddenly. “Or are you mostly passive defense?”

Sam thought of the shotgun and really doubted a woman like Selene would ever be content to remain passive. Hell, what she’d done to her kid’s attackers amounted to some seriously aggressive passivity, if that’s how Steve thought of it. Then again, he’d turned a shield, the most passive bit of combat gear ever, into a damn dangerous projectile weapon. Steve’s ideas of “passive” and “offensive” might be a little skewed.

“Well,” she temporized. “It probably isn’t what you’d think of as ‘offensive’, exactly. Maybe more like ‘proactive’. Locating the threats I’ve sensed is a part of it, and that’s where the Finding comes in. I have a number of ways to deal with threats, depending on what I Find, but the best and least messy has almost always been using mundane systems like the law or military disciplinary processes to deal with whatever it is. They take a bit more patience, I suppose, but they require a lot fewer awkward explanations that no one will believe, anyway.”

“Huh. I can see that.” Steve had lapsed into his Captain America voice, probably without even realizing it. He wore a thoughtful expression Sam knew well, though his tone seemed approving. “I guess that explains asking for the tooth, then. Whatever made them probably qualifies as a threat, right?”

_Tooth? What tooth?_ Sam wondered, feeling as if the conversation had gotten away from him again.

Selene nodded. “I’d sensed something not right for a few days, but I couldn’t get a good fix on it. I’m pretty sure whoever they are has some kind of obfuscation going. It’s the only reason I can think of that I’d have so little warning. I hope a piece of one of the Porcupine things will help me get past whatever they’re using to hide.”

“Well, I brought ya the tooth Steve just mentioned,” Barnes said, much to Sam’s surprise. “I told ‘em it wouldn’t be outta my sight, but you do whatever ya need to.”

Her smile held no small measure of relief. “I only need to hold it. We can go take care of it right now, if you want. If I’ve answered your questions, for now.”

The sniper shrugged one shoulder. “Just so the guys know, you haven’t…done anything to any of us, right?”

Sam knew that had to be the former assassin’s overcautious, suspicious nature talking. Still, the implication sent a shiver down his spine. They’d come to like and trust this woman pretty fast. Really fast, for the two super-soldiers, who’d gotten played and manipulated and used by people and organizations they’d trusted more often than he really wanted to think about. It tended to piss him off, when he did. But while the medic agreed the association had happened pretty fast, so had his befriending Steve. They’d gone from friendly running competitors to friends to combat teammates in less than a week, all told.

“I’ve no way to prove it, Bucky,” Selene answered solemnly, “except to give you my word that Ace and I have done nothing, esoteric or otherwise, to any of you beyond holding Steve stable and healing what we could. We absolutely wouldn’t do anything without your express permission. We’re very, very careful about that. Just because we can help doesn’t mean we should.”

She tilted her head. “Now, proven criminals like the two who attacked Ace are a slightly different story, but I have rules about that, too. I used the sketches you made, Steve, and the blood they drew from Ace in the scuffle that night to Find them and set the Binding. If I hadn’t had both, the sketches and the blood evidence, I wouldn’t have done it. Having these abilities doesn’t make us any better than anyone else, just different. If we can help, we do, but we don’t force anything on innocents. Ever _._ ”

She shifted in her seat. “Doing what we do takes energy. Sometimes, a lot of it. I slept very well, the night I set those Bindings. Steve saw how Ace passed out in this chair, the night he Healed you. The stronger and more resistant the target is, the more difficult and costly the effort to do anything to them. It can make for a heavy personal cost. We don’t do these things lightly, and permission makes it much easier.”

Barnes nodded, apparently satisfied, and a thoughtful silence descended. After a moment, Steve leaned forward.

“I just have one more question,” he began. “I’m thinking about you and Ace, and whatever’s going on that got him attacked. Do you have a way to deal with a direct attack like that?”

Ace shook his head. “I don’t, not really. Mom’s taught me a couple things, but I’m not very good at them and they really take it outta me. Those guys caught me by surprise when they actually attacked me. And what I'd have to do is...I mean, I'd _really_ rather not. Mom’s got me covered now, though, and she—”

“I can hold my own for a while,” she interrupted. “Nothing at all like the Avengers, of course. Mostly, I have deterrents, but there is a thing or two I can do to fight back if I have to. They aren’t much, but they’ll do until help arrives, for the most part. I…” Her eyes flicked to Ace and back to Steve, and they held a pain Sam had seen far too often at the VA. “I can kill, if I must, but there’s no between, and it…weakens me badly. I had to use it, quite some time ago. I don’t ever want to do it again, but I will if I have to.”

_Maybe we can teach them a few things,_ Sam thought as he exchanged a look with the other Avengers. _Light, easy stuff, at least at first. Ace can probably do some of the more aggressive things, but we’ll have to figure out what Selene’s body will allow._

He could see similar thoughts in his teammates’ expressions as she suggested they do whatever she’d needed the tooth for. They all rose to follow her to the back of her apartment. Barnes had probably already begun considering firearm possibilities. Steve looked as if he’d started designing hand-to-hand routines in his head.

Sam suppressed a chuckle, figuring it’d fall to him to mediate between the plans, and probably also pare them down to something workable for a normal human being. Or…well, physically normal, anyway. Sort of.

His thoughts derailed as they approached what looked like a blank wall at the end of the hallway. Steve and Barnes faltered a little at the same time, but Selene moved confidently right up to the wall and reached out. Her hand closed around a doorknob he hadn’t even seen…and suddenly, a plain white door stood in the wall he’d thought blank just a second before. The portal opened easily, and Selene reached in to flip a switch just inside. The light revealed a set of stairs that led downward, into the basement.

Ace grinned at the three of them as they stood there, staring. “It’s a Misdirection,” he explained. “If they don’t know it’s there, most people’ll miss seeing the door at all. And even if they know it’s there, if they’re looking for it, they’ll have a hard time seeing it if they haven’t got permission.”

“I have something similar on the building,” Selene added as they descended. “Less restrictive, of course. It only prevents anyone without an invitation from seeing the building unless they’re specifically looking for it. It’s just a first-line defense, but it keeps solicitors – and now, nosy paparazzi – from pestering us. For a while, anyway. It’s not particularly strong. We do want things like deliveries to get here without too much trouble, after all. The delivery’s a tacit invitation, but it means I have to keep that first layer sort of light.”

That raised some appreciative eyebrows, and then eyes widened as they cleared the staircase and got a good look at the room below. Clearly set up as a workshop of some kind, the furniture arrangement left the floor completely clear, and the cabinets, bookcases, and workbenches along the walls lent a sense of controlled clutter. The maps pinned up all over one wall, however, looked…strangely out of place.

Ace had remained at the top of the stairs. “Hey, Mom? I’m…gonna go check on Gen…”

She waved a hand at him as she moved into the room. “Go ahead, sweetheart. I won’t need you for this.”

When he’d closed the door, she aimed an apologetic shrug at her guests. “I had him come down and help with this, at one point. It made him feel pretty sick. He’s very sensitive to biological systems going wrong. Or being manipulated into wrong. Hospitals and doctors’ offices are difficult for him. I’ll never have to worry about him or any of his friends experimenting with drugs or too much alcohol, though. He can sense what they do to the body.”

Sam winced. He had enough experience seeing what they did to people who insisted on self-medicating to deal with pain, both physical and emotional. The thought of actually perceiving the effects directly made him want to go talk with the kid, just to make sure he didn’t get overwhelmed.

“Okay,” Selene said, moving across the room to one of the cabinets. It opened to show shelves full to bursting with row upon row of labeled boxes, stacks of rolled paper, and bound books. “Here, Sam, if you’d open this up to the Boroughs on that bench there… Steve, there’s a light switch at the other end, if you would?”

She handed a map book to the medic, who started leafing through the thing as the blond headed for the switch. Lights bloomed to life all along the bench just a moment later. Rooting around in the cabinet took up another minute or so, and then she closed the doors and headed for the map with three rolls of paper under her arm. She took a breath and smiled at Barnes. “May I have the tooth for a moment?”

He stepped forward, already opening a small zip-baggie, and shook the contents into her open left palm. She gasped as soon as the thing touched her skin, grimacing. “Wow, that sucks.” A shudder ran through her. “That sucks a lot. Let’s get this over with.”

Her fingers closed over the tooth, which looked nearly as long as her smallest finger, and she stepped even closer to the map. A few deft twists of her fingers, and she had a plain string knotted around the larger end of the bit of bone. She moved her hand so the dangling string hung over the map, then closed her eyes and went very, very still.

For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then, instead of gradually decreasing, the swing of the tooth began to increase, gently but steadily. She made a soft noise in the back of her throat and moved her hand north.

How she did it with her eyes closed the whole time, Sam had no idea, but she kept moving her hand with that swinging string hanging from her fingers. Steadily, south to north, east a little, and back south again. Five minutes passed that way, and then she stopped and the string went dead-straight and motionless, as if something had grabbed it, all in the same moment. She lowered her hand until the tip of the tooth touched the paper, and then opened her eyes.

“Is that at all close to where you ran into me the other day, Bucky?” she asked softly, eyes a little unfocused. She didn’t seem to look anywhere in particular.

The sniper stepped closer, leaning in to see. “Close, anyway. This map isn’t very detailed, but yeah.”

“There’s more detail on one of those maps, there,” she waved her free hand vaguely at the rolled paper she’d dropped on the bench beside the book. “If you’ll spread it out here for me, we’ll see if I can do better.”

“I thought you were looking for where the creatures came out of,” Steve murmured, eyes fixed on the map.

“I am,” she agreed, frowning faintly as she closed her eyes again. “But my hunch was that the read I’d gotten and the creatures all came from the same source. If the tooth is leading me there, I’ll know I’m right. Would you lay that map out so its orientation is different to this one, please?”

“Uh…sure.” Bucky shifted the sheet some. “Okay.”

She stepped sideways twice along the bench. The tooth seemed to stick to the first map for a moment, then pulled free and swung wildly in her hand as she repeated her actions over the second sheet. It didn’t take quite as long for the tooth to suddenly straighten the string. This time, though, it actually pulled the string through her fingers until it could touch the page.

It had landed in the same place as on the other map, right on the edge of the East River. Barnes leaned in unprompted. “Is that… Yeah, that’s the fire station you were starin’ at when I caught up with you,” he announced with some surprise. He’d angled the map so the location lay in a different place, relative to the bench, than on the other page. “It’s even on the fire station building, I think, and not on the intersection we met at.”

She hadn’t opened her eyes, this time. “I knew I forgot one. There’s another map of this section of waterfront in the cabinet. Could someone get it out, for me? Second shelf from the top, right side, I think.”

“I got it,” Sam answered, already moving. Opening the cabinet gave him a whiff of herby, paper-and-ink-scented air as he reached where she’d indicated. He only had to unroll two maps before he found the one she wanted and brought it back to roll out on the bench beside the others. This one, he arranged ninety degrees to the others without being asked, too. He thought he knew why she’d asked that, the last time.

She moved over almost before he’d gotten out of the way, and it appeared she had to virtually drag the tooth away from its position on the last map. It had barely gotten to the new map when it all but shot out of her hand to land, point down, just south of a jut of reclaimed land on the riverfront. Two buildings stood on the land, but the tooth had all but embedded itself in the map actually on the river, adjacent to the north-easternmost building.

“Ow!” At the same time, Selene uttered a soft cry and closed her free hand over the fingers of her left. Her eyes snapped open to glare at the tooth and the string puddled around it. “Eager to go home, huh? Damn.”

“Are you all right?” Steve asked, concerned. “What just happened?”

“Just a little string-burn.” She offered the injury for inspection in response to the hand Sam automatically held out for it. “I may have given it just a touch more energy than it really needed. When it caught, it pulled through my fingers and I didn’t let go fast enough. I got more than I expected, too.”

“I don’t get it,” Barnes mused, eyeing the tooth where it still stuck out of the map, improbably vertical. “It’s in the same general place, but why’s it in the water?”

“I think the place we’re looking for is _in_ the water. Underneath that fire station, probably.”

Sam released her hand. “You’re good. Just a little abrasion, like you said. What makes you think it’s under the fire station? Because I don’t even want to think about how crazy they’d have to be to build some kinda facility down there. Seriously. Under the East River?”

“I have…hm.” She spoke slowly, frowning at the map. “A sense of depth. Of…of dark, and…pressure. Or…no. Hm. It’s…oppressive. I’m sorry, it’s difficult to explain.”

“But that’s the place you were checking out, the other day.” Barnes didn’t seem to know where to direct his frown, at the tooth or at Selene. “And it’s in the Lower East Side, where Bruce and Buckethead said it would be. This links the place to those damn monsters.”

She nodded, her shoulders tensing just a little. “Yes. I know it seems far-fetched that—”

“Hey.” The sniper took a gentle hold of her shoulder to turn her to face him. “Hey. I know I didn’t exactly handle it all that well, and I’m sorry. I should have done better – you deserve better than that. You’ve also given me – us – more proof than we’ve even asked for. I believe you, doll. You don’t have to keep proving it. I won’t say it isn’t creepy as hell, because it is, but so is Wanda and I work with her all the time.”

Steve already wore a smile, a slightly gooey expression that meant Bucky’d just made him proud. “Besides, it’s not really all that far-fetched, if you think about it. The Avengers have made New York our home base, and we’ve spent the last several years cleaning it up. If there’s someone building monsters here, it stands to reason they’re the only game in town, doesn’t it? One operation might get by under our noses, but any more, and someone would have slipped up before this. If we’re both hunting monsters, chances seem pretty good we’d be hunting the same people.”

Sam considered that. The Avengers spent a lot of time kicking a lot of ass all over the world, really, but Steve did have a point. At least as far as NYC, they’d cleared out most of the big loonies, either by taking them down or sending them running out of town. They’d unearthed and destroyed dozens of Hydra installations in the city, a few as large as whole office buildings, most just small safe-houses and transfer stations. They hadn’t had any Stateside Hydra intel in more than a year. It didn’t seem likely they’d actually rooted Hydra completely out of the US, but Hydra locations in New York had become wildly unlikely. Most large-scale criminals seemed to have moved elsewhere.

“Okay, yeah, it makes sense,” he agreed. “But what would keep this lot here when most others have packed their bags?”

“That probably depends upon who they are and what they’re actually doing.” Selene extended a finger toward the tooth, then pulled it back. “Could you pick that thing up, please, Bucky? You can put it away. I don’t really want to touch it again.”

“So this is where _we_ take the next steps.” Barnes scooped the tooth, string and all, into his metal hand. He dropped the whole arrangement back into the zip-bag and sealed it tightly. “We need to know who built that place, when, and whether any big changes have been made to it that could have covered up a really big expansion project.”

“I could do the research—” Selene began, but Sam chuckled and held up a hand to stop her.

“Nah, you don’t need to.” He grinned. “Information like that is right up Tony’s alley, and FRIDAY is damn fast at it, too. What’d take you days of rooting through archives, they can get done in a quarter of the time, and then some. We’ve got this part.”

She grinned back, the relief in her expression almost palpable. “Thanks for believing me, guys. It means a lot.”

 

* * *

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait. You took my scientifically-collected tooth—”

“You jerked it out of a dead monster’s mouth and dropped it into a plastic zipper baggie,” Bucky pointed out, wryly amused.

The billionaire waved his hands. “Scientifically-collected tooth, and took it to Samantha the Witch—”

“Her name’s Selene.” Steve frowned at him.

“The Witch, who wriggled her nose at it—”

“Actually, she tied it to a string and held it over a map,” Sam corrected.

“You said you’d bring your friend to explain their results to me, personally.” Tony wore an accusatory glare.

Steve nodded. “She said she can come first thing tomorrow, if you want. She had some prior commitments, today.”

Tony glared. “And you want me to act on the results of this bullshit mumbo-jumbo—”

“Just background research on the location and the people involved in it,” Steve interrupted, on the very edge of Captain America Voice. “You don’t even have to leave the Tower.”

Bucky smirked. “Nothing you wouldn’t have done if we’d actually seen something weird there.”

“It’s in the right place,” Sam pointed out reasonably. “We don’t have any other leads, anyway.”

“How do you suggest we explain it if I do find an anomaly?” The engineer shared his glare between the three of them. “Because I’m pretty sure ‘a witch told us where to look’ isn’t going to hold up under any kind of rational scrutiny.”

“Then you will say that I received a strange sense from the place,” an accented voice interrupted before any of them could answer. They all turned to see Wanda step into the common living room from the entryway. She wore a determined expression. “Anyone who questions us is already used to the strangeness of my ‘evidence’. Say that I insisted you investigate the place. No one will question it further, and you will still say that a Witch told you where to look.”

Tony’s scowl took on a hint of nervousness, never a good thing in a situation like this. Inevitably, his mouth ran off with him when he got nervous, and Wanda still made him nervous. “Oh, great. That’s just great. Now she’s got _you_ all enamored of her. Seriously, we’re going to find out in a month or two that she’s some kind of megalomaniacal freak out to sed—” His head jerked forward sharply as a sudden sharp breeze resolved itself into Pietro, who stood at his shoulder wearing a scowl.

“Do not speak of Selene that way!” he rebuked the billionaire, who had clapped both hands to the back of his head and turned to glare indignantly. “She is kind, and generous, and—”

“And he really liked her kebabs,” Wanda interrupted, amused.

Tony threw his hands up in the air. “Fine! I get it, I get it! Selene Thomas is a damn saint!” He shared a glare around the room. “Whatever. I’m sick of hearing about this woman! I’ll look into your location, but I’m doing this under duress! This is ridiculous.” Turning on his heel, he stalked out of the room.

Bucky, Steve, and Sam exchanged a look. “Well. That went better than I expected,” Bucky murmured, surprised. Sam nodded agreement.

“Thanks, you two,” Steve said to Wanda and Pietro. “We appreciate the assist.”

Pietro flashed him a cheeky grin, but Wanda wore a serious expression. “She is kind and generous, and also very, very powerful. Of all the people and creatures we have encountered since we met all of you, only the Asgardians are more powerful than Miss Thomas and her son. Her power is different than the Asgardians, too. I’m not sure how they compare. It’s… She frightened me, at first. But then she let me sample her power, and it is clean. Warm. It made me feel safe there, safer than even here. The Thomases…they are important. I don’t know how, exactly, but that much is clear to me. She will not knowingly lead us astray.”

“She is like Alina, yes?” her brother offered. When she nodded agreement, he explained, “Alina lived in our building, before the bombs. She watched us when our parents worked. Like an older sister. She was the only one we liked.”

Steve glanced at Bucky and Sam, feeling a tension bleed away that he hadn’t even noticed until then. Bucky seemed to feel the same, as his shoulders relaxed just a little. Sam only grinned, pleased. It was good to know that more of the team had gotten so comfortable with the Thomases.


	8. Chapter 8

Ace stepped into the hallway early Monday morning, backpack over his shoulder and juggling his keys and a sack lunch. He’d gotten up a touch late, his usual routine made a little slower by needing to move quietly around Gen, who would get to sleep for at least another hour. While he’d made up the lost time once he’d gotten out into the kitchen, he still didn’t really feel awake. His brain definitely hadn’t gotten all his limbs coordinated, yet, and he had to try twice before he got the door properly locked.

“Oh, hey, Ace,” a voice greeted him. “Headed out to school already?”

Startled, he barely kept from dropping his keys as he turned to find Bucky standing across the hall with his own keys in hand. Ace wiped at an eye. “Um. G’mornin’. Yeah. I’ve got an early class. We’re workin’ on a couple new songs.”

“I’m on my way out, too.” The Avenger gestured with the helmet in his hand. “Want a ride?”

_Holy crap…_ The young man hefted his backpack a little higher onto his shoulder. “On your motorcycle?”

“I’ve got an extra helmet. You’ll have to give me directions, though. I don’t know where your school is.”

“All the way? It’s…um, it’s kind of a long drive…”

“Nah, not if it’s still in Brooklyn. I’ve got plenty of time.” The helmet waved enticingly. “You ever ridden a bike? I promise, it’s loads better than the subway.”

Honestly, Ace found the thought a little terrifying. He knew how dangerous motorcycles could be – enough so that he’d heard emergency and medical personnel calling them ‘donorcycles’ and ‘suicide bikes’. Still, it was Bucky offering. An Avenger. He’d seen some of the crazy things they’d done on – or, really, coming off – their bikes in news footage. If they could do those things and walk away, surely a simple little ride across Brooklyn would be safe enough. Not to mention, he’d be riding with Bucky Barnes. How dangerous could it be, really?

He let a grin spread across his face. “Okay, sure!”

In short order, he found himself astride the pillion behind the Avenger, a plain black helmet on his head. He did his best to hang onto the sides of the man’s leather jacket without clutching, not wanting to show any of the anxiety he felt. It helped that they started off on residential streets with very little traffic, so they didn’t move very fast but also didn’t have to contend with rush-hour insanity. He found he needed that to get used to the motion.

It didn’t feel like riding a bicycle, exactly, but it didn’t seem all that far off from that, either. He leaned naturally into the first turn, but it felt strange to lean so much weight. It seemed more stable than his bike, with wider tires, more mass. His hands wouldn’t stop clutching, especially coming out of turns or starting from a stop, but he began to feel a little less tense after the first five or so minutes.

“How’re you doin’ back there?” Bucky’s voice startled him, sounding loud in the confines of his helmet.

“Oh, whoa, there’s an intercom in these things?” Ace blurted.

The Avenger chuckled. “Yep. Only makes sense, since we can’t talk without ‘em. You’ve gotta give me directions, remember?”

“Um, yeah. I thought I was gonna have to wave, or something.” Good thing the helmet hid his face. He could feel the heat of a blush covering his cheeks. “We’re goin’ left on Fulton, when we get there.”

“Got it. You doin’ okay?”

“Um. Yeah, I’m…I’m good.”

“Just askin’ ‘cause you’ve got quite a grip, here.”

Ace’s hands spasmed, but he couldn’t get them to loosen up. If anything, he held on tighter. “Er, sorry. I…guess I’m a little nervous. This is my first ride.”

“Hey, no problem. Hang on as hard as you like.” They glided along in silence for a little while, and then Bucky glanced over his shoulder to slide into the left lane. “If it helps, you’re doin’ pretty good. I didn’t expect you to lean the turns so well.”

“It’s…kinda like riding my bike? For balancing, anyway. Um. Kinda?”

The sniper’s low, warm chuckle sounded clear over the intercom. “I wouldn’t know. Stevie and I never had bicycles when we were kids. Gettin’ around meant usin’ our feet.”

“Um, right on Rochester, and head for Buffalo,” Ace prompted, considering that. Given what he knew about Steve and Bucky from history class, bikes and bus fares, never mind subway fares, probably woulda been a long way out of their reach most times. “So you guys…I mean, you walked to work? On the docks?”

“Well, sometimes you could catch a ride on the outside of a street car, or a truck goin’ your way.” Bucky shrugged, a small movement. “But you did what you had to, yeah? Like you do for your Ma.”

Ace chuckled, the sound a little wry. “Yeah, well, Mom doesn’t let me do much for her, to be honest. She’s too stubborn, most times. It’s just…yanno, when she can’t.”

“Boy, does that sound familiar.”

“Steve?” the young man asked, a little startled.

“Oh yeah, that’s Steve all over.” They made the next turn. “I always kinda had to do stuff on the sly, with him. Wouldn’t do to let ‘im know I was takin’ care of ‘im, even if I was. I think he knew, though. It just went easier if neither of us said anything about it.”

Okay, yeah, it did sound familiar. “I do that with Mom, sometimes. When she’s…been havin’ a bad time. It’s mostly just little stuff.”

“Sometimes it’s the littlest stuff that makes the biggest difference. Where to, now?”

“Oh! Uh, left onto Rockaway. So is Steve better about it, now? I mean, I get he doesn’t much need it anymore, but…you know?”

The Avenger snorted. “Not so’s you’d notice. Always gotta have the world on his shoulders, Stevie. He’s always tryin’ to do things alone he doesn’t have to do by himself.”

Ace sighed. “Yeah. Mom, too. There’s stuff I could help her with, if she’d just let me. Thing is, she keeps saying she doesn’t want me to ‘have to deal with that crap’ until I’m done with school.”

“She might be right about that, you know.”

“Maybe she is, maybe not. I don’t know, ‘cause she won’t let me in on it. I know there’s stuff I can’t help with, and stuff I haven’t learned to do yet, but there’s gotta be things I could do. Just to take it off her, at least.”

“Like what do you mean? The…uh, the magic stuff she does?”

He had to suppress a snicker at that. It wasn’t the Avengers’ fault they didn’t really know anything about it, after all. “Yeah, that. She’s taken a lot on just because she’s the strongest in the area, and every time someone does stupid crap, she gets called out to fix it.”

“Strongest?” Bucky sounded startled. “I’d’a thought that’d be that Doctor Strange character. What is it he calls himself? The ‘Sorcerer Supreme’, or somethin’?”

“Oh, hell no!” the young man answered with a derisive snort. “He’s all about extradimensional stuff. High Planar Magick-with-a-K, stellar influences, the kind of stuff that doesn’t matter to most of us here on Earth, maybe only ever matters to people like him and some superheroes, now and then. Nah, Mom and I are connected to the Earth. We’re all about this plane, this dimension, and the entities grounded here. If he wants to do anything in our sphere, it takes him at least twice the power it’d take us, and he won’t get the results we would.”

It’d taken his mother some time to get this explained to him so he really understood it. “I mean, Mom and I can’t even touch most of the weirdness he deals with. It’s just not influenced by the power we use. But for anything Earth-related, there’s no one in North America more powerful than Mom. There might be one or two people here in the States who about equal her, give or take, but nobody’s stronger. So she kinda keeps half an eye on everything, from here to the west coast. That’s why she’s got all those maps downstairs. If she catches things in places she can’t get to quickly, she lets people who’re closer know so it gets taken care of.”

“Wait, so your Ma…watches the whole country?”

“Pretty much. It’s not official, or anything…at least, not exactly. It’s…more like an unspoken agreement among the Folk. Just in our nature. We take care of our own territories, and the stronger you are, the bigger your territory. Mom’s strongest, so she takes care of a lot of space, and she helps those with less whenever she can because they’re in her space.” He wrinkled his nose under the face-shield. “Did…that make sense?”

“I think so.” A pause. “No, I’m not sure I get it. What’s she watching for?”

“Anything really wrong _,_ ” Ace answered, struggling to find an explanation. “She’s not the police, or anything. I mean, there’s no such thing as law enforcement for this, you know? The Folk don’t have actual laws, exactly. It’s more like…survival of the fittest combined with…I don’t know. Sort of a feudal system of loyalty, I guess. It’s…all kind of by mutual agreement, though.”

He really didn’t know if he was making it better or worse, at this point. “Mom looks out for people who’ve asked for her help, and she’ll warn people if she notices possible trouble in places she hasn’t been asked. That’s why it was so weird when these monsters and whatever’s going on in the LES just kinda popped up outta nowhere. Mom usually catches that stuff and deals with it before it gets bad enough for anyone else to notice. This time, there just wasn’t any warning. I think it’s kinda ticked her off. Go right on Kings.”

“What do you mean by ‘Folk’?” Bucky asked, negotiating the turn.

“Oh. That’s us. People with power in their blood. There’s other words, but they all basically mean the same thing. What we do, you’re either born able to access it, or you aren’t. Mom says there’s other ways to gain power, if you have enough reason to go looking for it, but not for what we have. You want the second turn at the circle. The one for M.”

“I thought everyone had the potential for this stuff. And are you supposed to be telling me all this? I mean, this isn’t gonna make your Ma mad, is it?”

“Nah. If this was the first time you’d heard about it, she’d probably be mad, but only because most people…don’t believe this stuff. And yeah, everyone has the potential for what we do, but if you aren’t born able to access it, that’s all it is. Potential. Only reason we don’t talk about it is...it’s kinda dangerous to talk about it to people who don’t already know.”

He sighed, the frustration and loneliness that went along with that fact rising as it always did when he thought about this. “Take the right onto Seventeenth, up here. I guess some people just don’t really want to know there’s more to the world than they can see and understand. Finding out makes ‘em mad. Or jealous. Like Mom said, that’s part of how we wound up with witch hunts and stuff, way back when. And those are most of the reason there aren’t very many of us in the world, anymore.”

“There aren’t?”

“Nope. Mom and I are the last of our family, since my aunt was killed a few years ago. Rick, my sperm donor? He’s got a brother, but I don’t know if any of my cousins have the power or just the potential. I don’t know if they know. It’s not very strong in his family, anyway. What I got mostly came from Mom’s side. My Nana had power, and Grandpa had at least the potential, but they both had a lot of it.”

“So this runs in families.”

“Uh-huh. That’s the school, up there on the right. It means a lot of responsibility, on top of the normal life everyone else lives. Mom and her line have always taken it really seriously.”

As they pulled up outside the school, gliding to a halt at the curb in front of the main doors, a cold finger of awareness slid up Ace’s spine. He tensed, twisting to look around. That feeling meant someone Watching him, and the strength of the feeling told him whoever had caused it lurked pretty close by. Bucky got up off the bike, and he slid down too, still trying to locate the source of the feeling even as he pulled the helmet off his head.

“Hey, you okay?”

Ace blinked, turning to find the sniper eyeing him with a faint frown. “I’m…yeah. I’m good. But there’s…someone watching us.”

Suddenly, the Avenger went from ‘friendly and curious’ to ‘tense predator’. He straightened, taking the helmet from his erstwhile passenger in a casual gesture utterly belied by his expression. “Just a feeling, or more than that?” He asked the question quietly.

“More…than that. They’re watching, but they’re also Watching.”

“Found ‘em, yet?”

“Mom’s better at this than I am, but…um…” A car on the corner kept dragging his attention back. “I think they’re in that sedan up the street. The white one across the way, just the other side of the hydrant.”

“Do you recognize it?”

“Nope.” People from his class had started to trickle in, though the ride meant he’d arrived half an hour earlier than usual. He could hear them whispering, and even a strangled squeal or two, so he knew they’d recognized Bucky. It made him a little sorry he’d accepted this ride. He’d kind of enjoyed keeping his friendship with the superheroes just between him and his mother, and maybe Gen.

Then again…Gen knew, now. He realized a little belatedly that he hadn't thought to ask her to keep her mouth shut about it, so his association with the Avengers would probably have been all over school by the afternoon, if it hadn’t already made the rounds. He shook his head and dragged his attention back to the cold feeling that still hadn’t abated. “I don’t know the car, and I don’t recognize what I’m feeling, either. Whoever it is, I don’t know them.”

“Okay. Why don’t you go on inside? I’ll just go see what I can find out about who’s in that car.”

“You don’t…” Ace trailed off at the look he received.

“I know I don’t. I’m gonna, anyway.” The grin the sniper flashed at him looked more than a little predatory, and it soothed him. His mother wore a similar expression sometimes, usually right before she made everything better. “You head to class. I’ll let you know what I find out this afternoon.”

Ace had no intention of arguing with that expression. He nodded. “Okay. Hey, thanks for the ride.”

A wink. “Any time. See ya this afternoon!”

He waved and turned to go into the school. _I kinda hope whoever’s in the car has enough sense to take off and not come back. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to piss Bucky off._

* * *

 “Hey FRIDAY,” Bucky said into his helmet as soon as his call connected. He got back on his bike. “I’ve got a New York plate for you to run. Easy-Nan-Item-zero-one-niner. ”

“Of course, Sir,” the AI responded immediately. The sniper pulled into the street and began to circle back while he waited. He’d just parked up the street from the white sedan Ace had pointed out when the answer came back. “That license plate is registered to Empire Novelty Import Company, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Start digging into them, then,” he answered. “I wanna know why someone in their company car would sit out here at oh-God-thirty, watching Ace’s school. I’ll try to get you some faces to go with that here in a minute.”

“Very good, Sir.”

Irritated by yet another intrusion into the Thomases’ lives, he cut the line, hung his helmet off the handlebar, and swung his leg over the bike. He used trees and lightpoles to stay out of the car’s mirrors as he approached, then swung wide to try to get a look inside. A hatchet-faced man with a weird starburst scar on his left cheek sat in the driver’s seat looking less than pleased. The way he held himself all but screamed ‘military’.

It took a little more maneuvering to see the passenger, and the rat-faced little man in the right seat seemed even more put out. He appeared to argue with someone in the back seat. Bucky could see only the back of a bald head and thick neck through the rear window. Even so, a sneaking suspicion took hold of the sniper as he used his Starkphone to get pictures of the two men in the front seat. Tucking the phone back in his pocket, he cat-footed his way to the rear passenger door, put on a smirk, and tapped gently on the glass with a metal finger.

The meaty, bald passenger jumped, stiffened, and then turned. Just as he’d thought, Bucky knew him. He kept a surreptitious eye on the other two men as Rick Hamilton paled and – reluctantly – lowered the window.

“Out on bail, huh, Rick?” he drawled. "Who're your friends?"

“What do you want?” the slug demanded, a faint tremor in his voice that only widened the sniper’s smirk.

“Just checkin’ what kinda scumbag’s sittin’ on the street, watchin’ my friend’s school. Figures it’d be you. Didn’t bein’ served with a protection order give you a hint? You aren’t welcome hangin’ around. Bringin’ friends along won’t help you any, either.” He tapped his left hand on the sill of the door, making a pointed metallic sound. “Just give it up and leave ‘em alone.”

“That’s my kid!” Hamilton insisted, breaking out in a sweat. To Bucky’s surprise, he even looked really afraid, and the sniper got the impression the fear had very little to do with him. “You got no right, threatening me! And she’s got no right keeping him from me! This is bullshit!”

“Enough, Hamilton,” the hatchet-faced driver growled as he started the engine. “You heard him.”

“No, wait!” the heavy man cried as the window began to rise back into place. “This isn’t—”

Bucky straightened as the window slid closed and the car pulled away from the curb. He watched to make sure they drove off, pointing at Hamilton when he saw the man turn to glare at him through the rear window, and waited a little longer to make sure they didn’t circle back the way he had. Twenty minutes on, he went back to his bike and called FRIDAY again as he headed for the Brooklyn Bridge.

“I’ve got a couple faces for you,” he told the AI. “Last four or so pictures on my phone. ID the two in the front seat, if you can. Guy in the back was Rick Hamilton, Selene Thomas’ ex. Make sure that restraining order’s in effect, too, will ya? They weren’t close enough for an arrest, today, but I don’t think that dumbass is going to let a piece of paper stop him.”

“Certainly, Sir. I did find a connection between Mister Hamilton and Empire Novelty Import. The company has employed him since late last year. Their payroll lists him as a ‘staff consultant’.”

Something didn’t add up. Why would an importing company send a company car and two other employees to help a third-rate “consultant” they’d employed for less than a year stalk the kid he’d abandoned a decade ago? Especially after the restraining order Selene had filed, it seemed like the kind of thing most public companies would want to avoid like the plague.

Maybe the other two didn’t know what was going on? They’d seemed pretty irritated, and backed right off when he’d confronted them. Hamilton could have lied to them, and probably would… Except the idiot had seemed really afraid. What would do that?

“I think you’d better dig really deep on all of this,” he told the AI as he rode onto the Bridge. “Something about it stinks. I don’t like whatever’s going on, and I wanna know what that is. Whatever we’ve tripped over, I’ve got the idea Selene and Ace don’t know it’s happening, either.”

“Understood, Sir.”

“Has Steve arrived at the Tower, yet?”

“No, Sir. It would appear he and Master Sergeant Wilson have stopped for donuts.”

“Oh, great! Kid left so early, I didn’t get a chance to eat. Make sure they save some for me.”

“I’m afraid I cannot promise that, Sergeant Barnes. Mister Barton is still in-country, at the moment.”

“Well damn, I’ll have to hurry, then. Tell Barton I’ll booby-trap his favorite perch if he eats all the chocolate eclairs.”

“Which perch, Sir?”

“That’s for me to know and him to discover the hard way. Just pass the message on.”

“I shall do so, Sir.”

“You’re a peach, FRIDAY.” 

* * *

Selene stared up at the imposing Avengers Tower, shaking her head and chuckling to herself. She’d thought it an amusing monument to hubris back when it had been built as Stark Tower. Now the headquarters for one of the world’s highest-profile peacekeeping forces, she couldn’t help but think of it as a really big target. It certainly didn’t appeal as a place to live, luxurious or not. She didn’t think she could really feel safe with Ace there…

…well, except for its other tenants. The Avengers in residence probably made it one of the safest buildings in New York. If not for the ridiculous enemies they generally faced, and the clear visibility of the building, she wouldn’t question the safety of occupying the place at all. Especially not after passing through the metal detectors just inside the magnificent lobby on the ground floor. Given the way Steve, Bucky, and Sam talked about Tony Stark, if she could see one layer of security already, the billionaire genius probably had twenty more in place that she couldn’t see. At least, not with her eyes.

_Hm. Mister Stark will probably want me to perform like a trick pony,_ she thought as she approached the elegant marble reception-and-information desk. _It might be worth seeing what my Other Senses can tell me about his security. I might find something to surprise him with._

The woman behind the counter gave a too-bright, vacuous smile. “Welcome to Avengers Tower,” she chirped. “How can I help you today?”

_As opposed to tomorrow or yesterday?_ Selene wondered but didn’t ask. No need to confuse her. If this woman – her name badge proclaimed her ‘Sarah’ – represented the sort of person Stark usually hired for public relations positions, she shouldn’t wonder why he always seemed to have sunglasses on his face. Miss Sarah could power a small country with the wattage from that smile and the happy-cheery-radiance in her voice. Resisting the urge to don her own sunglasses, the author-artist dug her identification out of her purse and slid the card across the polished marble counter.

“Selene Thomas to see Mister Stark. He’s probably expecting me, but Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, or Master Sergeant Wilson will vouch for me if necessary.”

Some of the brilliance disappeared into surprise as the woman picked up the ID. “Of course. Excuse me for just a moment.” Selene nodded, and Sarah beamed another thousand-watt smile as she turned to her computer.

_Metal detectors, greeting staff, and cameras in the ceilings,_ the author thought, turning casually to look around while she waited. _Cameras probably mean security staff, too, but that’s not really a surprise. The badge Sarah’s wearing suggests all the employees are issued security badges, too, and I can’t imagine they aren’t coded somehow to make sure only authorized personnel can access certain areas. Betting Sarah wouldn’t be welcome on the residential floors, and maybe not any of the office floors, either. Public areas, only. Bar codes or RFID chips, probably. Magnetic swipe strips are probably too old school for Mister Technology. Okay. So, now, what else can I discover from here?_

Rooted in the earth, built of natural elements even if not natural on its own, the Tower still carried the altered energies of the raw materials that had gone into its construction. Standing on its floor, surrounded by it, those energies had washed gently over her skin the moment she’d entered. Now, she cautiously opened herself to them and Listened.

 “Miss Thomas?” Sarah asked a few minutes later. She blasted another smile when Selene turned. “You’re to go right up. If you’ll just sign in here…”

Selene managed a much weaker smile of her own and signed in, pressed her hand to the scanner Sarah proffered next, then accepted her ID and a visitor’s badge. Clipping the latter to the lapel of her suit jacket, she looked at the elevator bank behind the desk. “Is there a particular car I need to take?”

“The Private Elevator on the far right.” Sarah beamed. “Your badge will do the rest.”

“Great. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, Miss Thomas. Have a great day!”

“You, too.” _And maybe consider switching to decaf, Miss Sarah._ The elevator door opened as she approached, so she stepped inside and turned around, looking for the button panel out of habit as the door closed. Unsurprisingly, no such common item existed in this elevator. “Well then, I hope my badge really does do the rest,” she murmured.

“I am pleased to take care of your transportation from here on, Miss Thomas,” an Irish-accented female voice answered.

She startled a little, then laughed. “You must be the FRIDAY I’ve heard so much about.” Nearly-invisible speakers embedded in the ceiling near the door gave her the source of the voice, as well as a tiny camera lens to smile into. “I’m glad to finally meet you.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance as well, Miss Thomas,” the AI answered as the car started moving, almost soundless. “Many of the Avengers speak very highly of you and your son.”

“Well, thank you very much.” She refused to think that the warmth in her cheeks had anything to do with an actual blush. “So, where to, now?”

“Sir has asked me to deliver you to the Avengers’ Common floor, where Madam Pepper has ordered refreshments delivered.”

“That sounds fantastic. Are Bucky, Steve, and Sam here?”

“I have alerted them to your arrival. They are en route to the Common floor, as well. I believe they wish to be present to introduce you to Sir.”

She chuckled. “And you’re timing my trip to match them, right?” The car had slowed markedly, though absolutely smoothly. “So I don’t get there before they’re present to save me from Mister Stark?”

“I will admit to having taken the liberty, Miss Thomas. If you would prefer not—”

“Oh, no, no. It wouldn’t do to steal their protective thunder.” She shook her head but couldn’t rid herself of the grin. “I will admit, Mister Stark is a bit intimidating. I don’t mind if they want to smooth the way a bit. Given what I know about him, I can only imagine he’s gearing up to tear me to shreds, hm?”

She didn’t know if the AI’s hesitation should be considered the same way a human’s would have, there, but it definitely hesitated for a moment. “Sir has expressed some reservations regarding your rather unique methodology.”

That only made her laugh out loud. “Which is your very polite way of saying he doesn’t believe a word of what anyone’s told him about me and what I do, and he’s very interested in tearing it apart to discredit me entirely.”

“Not entirely. He certainly believes you’re an artist and a respected author with a number of excellent titles to your credit.” The AI paused again. “Sir has read your ‘Greenfolk’ trilogy and the ‘Wyrdfolk’ duo, and is fifty pages into the most recent installment of the ‘Passion Spirit’ series.”

Since the latter title comprised a series of supernatural yaoi romances written in the Japanese light novel style, Selene was still laughing when the elevator door finally opened to release her to Steve and Bucky. They exchanged a surprised look as she stepped out of the car, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue from her purse and chuckling.

“Uh…” Steve looked a little concerned. “Everything okay, Selene?”

She couldn’t stop another giggle. “Everything’s fine. FRIDAY just has a very interesting insight into life in the Tower. She’s an absolute delight.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Thomas.”

“Please FRIDAY, call me Selene. And thank you for the ride.”

“It was my pleasure, Miss Selene.”

Glass clinked abruptly from somewhere off to her right. “All right, Miss Thomas.” She’d never heard the voice in person, but it couldn’t be mistaken for anyone but Tony Stark’s. “You’ve already stolen three of my boyfriends. You’re not allowed to steal my AI assistant, too.”

Steve and Bucky had met her in a kind of anteroom that held one additional elevator door, a hallway that ran off to parts unknown, and an open doorway that could only lead toward the eccentric billionaire. He’d probably meant to confuse or startle her with that greeting, but after the conversation she’d had with FRIDAY, he just didn’t seem as intimidating after all. Steve rolled his eyes, Bucky shook his head wryly, and she let her smile widen back into a grin.

“Come on in,” Steve sighed. “Tony’s not the only one who’d like to meet you.”

They ushered her into a ridiculously large, lavishly-appointed living room with an enormous flat-screen television on one wall and a grouping of nearly obscene leather couches directly opposite. What looked like a full bar occupied the far wall, and there stood the proprietor, turned to watch their entrance with a half-full glass of something amber in his hand. Selene had no intention of letting him think he had the upper hand, though. She moved straight across the room to shake his hand.

“Selene Thomas, Mister Stark. It’s nice to meet you. And really, if you weren’t so occupied with your very lovely girlfriend, your boyfriends might not have felt neglected enough to wander into my neck of Brooklyn.” He blinked at her, and she turned to the strawberry-haired woman who sat on the nearest couch. “And you would be that lovely girlfriend, Miss Virginia Potts. I’m very pleased to meet you. What you’ve done with Stark Industries since you took over is nothing short of inspiring. Especially the charity branch.”

Miss Potts’ eyes sparkled with amusement as she accepted a handshake. “Oh, Pepper, please. Thank you very much, Miss Thomas. I’ve heard a great deal about you, too. I’ve seen pictures of your fiber work, and I’m very interested in commissioning a wall hanging from you. Won’t you sit down?”

“If you’re Pepper, then I’m Selene,” she answered as she took the offered seat. Steve and Bucky settled onto another couch close by. “What did you have in mind?”

“I want it for the boardroom, and the wall I’m thinking of is fairly large. It should have warm colors, I think. The paint is a warm beige.”

“I’d like to see the space, if I may. Take some measurements, get a feel for it. And then, perhaps you’d like to come by my work room and see if I have anything already made up in a style you’d like? I can incorporate the style – or styles, there are combinations that could be made – into your colors. Are you interested in something pictorial, or more abstract?”

“That sounds perfect. I’d love to pay you a visit. The piece should be abstract, I think. Just something to war—”

“Ah, excuse me,” Tony finally interrupted, coming around the end of the couch beside Pepper. “I’m pretty sure the point of this visit was not to discuss decorative towels. Also, Miss Thomas, you are not allowed to steal my girlfriend, either.”

“Tony!” Pepper rebuked him.

“Tony…” Steve’s tone held a definite warning.

Selene beamed at him. “Keep her happy, Mister Stark, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

Just then, Sam came through the door from the elevators, moving at a fast walk. He paused just inside the room, gaze skipping from person to person. “Hey, Selene. Glad you could make it.” He eyed Stark. “Tony, you said you would be nice.”

“Be ni— I _am_ being nice!” The engineer looked affronted. He looked at Steve and Bucky, and then at Pepper. “I haven’t said one mean thing yet, have I?”

Selene chuckled. “He’s been fine, Sam. Just exactly what I expected.”

The pararescuer grimaced as he dropped into a chair. “That’s kind of what I was afraid of. Sorry I ran late. I got tied up in a debriefing with Director Coulson. FRIDAY saved me from yet another repeat of our last mission.”

“It’s fine. I was just getting acquainted with Pepper.” She smiled at the redhead as she offered her a card. “Give me a call, and we’ll set something up to get together and talk more about that hanging. I already have a couple of ideas, depending on what you’re looking for.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you.”

“Any time.” Now, she transferred her attention to the petulant billionaire. “All right, Mister Stark. Hit me with your worst.”

He glowered. “It’s no fun if you ask for it.”

“Well, I am asking for it,” she answered firmly. “I hope we can all work together on this, because there are some very bad people doing some very bad things in our city. I am not at all okay with that. If I have to destroy your comfortable belief in your own knowledge of the workings and order of the universe to accomplish that, so be it. So. Let’s begin, shall we?”

Steve, Sam, and Bucky gaped at her. Stark glared. “Explain your method for determining the tooth’s origin,” he demanded.

“I provided it the required power, then allowed the energies latent in its substance to guide me to their point of origin.” She shrugged. “Beyond that, I’m afraid I can’t really explain the fine mechanism. I’m a user, not an engineer. Or a scientist. I simply do what works.”

He appeared to think about that for a moment. “Okay, I can’t argue with that. I don’t have enough data. Which, by the way, is how quacks and charlatans have snowed people since the dawn of time. Not enough information.”

Bucky leaned forward. “Sorry to ask, Selene, but can you do the thing you did to convince me? He’ll still probably try to poke holes in it, but it might be the quickest way.”

“I rather expected to have to do something,” she told him, smiling gently. “No need to apologize. I’m actually prepared to do one better, given the thickness of the skull I’m trying to get through, here. Mister Stark, do you agree that I have never entered the Tower before today?”

“FRIDAY?” He frowned, clearly puzzled.

“I have no record of Miss Selene’s presence before today, Sir,” the AI responded.

The engineer nodded. “Okay, I’ll grant that.”

“Excellent. And I’m sure you’ll agree the security inside the Tower is top-notch, with no one able to get into areas they don’t belong in, right?”

“Of course,” he agreed, suddenly wary.

“Very good. Now, if you will humor me, please think of a physical object that you have misplaced. It doesn’t matter how long ago it disappeared, nor where you believe you mislaid it, so long as you believe it has remained within the Tower. Merely for the purposes of this exercise, I think it would be best if you don’t have to follow me out into public to prove myself, hm?”

His eyes narrowed. “Anything?”

“Make it as difficult as you like.”

“All right.”

“Focus clearly on your object. I don’t need to know what it is, or where you think it is.” She rose, moving closer. “May I touch the back of your hand?”

“Uh, why?”

She sighed. “You’re very resistant, and you don’t particularly want me to succeed at this. You make it difficult to See. Touch will give me a clearer idea.”

“Ah, there’s the demur. Just in case you do fail, you can blame me.” He looked smug.

“Tony,” Bucky growled. “You asked for this. Cooperate, or you don’t get to run your mouth about it.”

Selene glanced at the sniper, throwing him a quick wink before returning her attention to the billionaire. “Believe what you wish, Mister Stark. Your hand?”

He rolled his eyes and held out his hand. “FRIDAY, start recording this, full scans. Let’s get some good data on all the hocus-pocus.”

“Certainly, Sir.”

Selene smiled at him and touched two fingers to the back of his hand. “Focus on your item.” It took a few moments, and he lost focus a half-dozen times in the thirty seconds or so that she maintained contact, but she managed to get a good lock on what he’d chosen. She reclaimed her own hand. “Thank you, Mister Stark. FRIDAY, if you would be so kind, please don’t help me at all for this. Don’t open doors, operate elevators, do nothing that might be construed as collusion at all.”

“As you wish, Miss.”

“Thank you. And now, anyone who would like, if you’ll follow me…” She set off to follow the thin thread she’d been able to glean, moving through the door into the hall and then following the hallway to its end. It terminated in a wall with a single elevator door. Pausing there, she sought out the energies necessary and gave them a small push. The door slid silently open.

Stark stopped short behind her. “FRIDAY, you aren’t supposed to open doors,” he accused.

“I did not, Sir. The elevator opened due to an anomalous signal received through the usual wiring.”

“Anomalous signal? With what origin?”

“I’m afraid I am unable to determine its source.”

“Huh.”

To her surprise, Steve, Bucky, Sam, and Pepper had followed with Stark. They all piled into the elevator, and she touched the door’s circuits again to close it. Another touch smoothed the car into motion, and she concentrated on the thread so she could halt the car when they came even.

“FRIDAY?” The billionaire asked sharply. He’d started to look a little wild around the eyes.

“No, Sir, I do not have control of the elevator.”

“You’re running full scans?”

“As you requested, Sir.”

Pepper looked intrigued, Sam smirked, Steve appeared vindicated, and Bucky snickered softly. Stark, however, had lost his smugness. His expression had gone somewhat wooden.

Ten floors later, Selene halted the car, and they all piled out into a lushly-carpeted corridor with only three doors visible along its length. Still following her thread, she went straight to the third door, goosed the wiring, and stepped through into what looked like a cross between an auto shop, a machinist’s shop, and an Escher painting.

Benches and tables lay scattered with parts and wiring, while what must be half-completed ‘projects’ stood in varying proximity to the spreads of components. Most of them, unfortunately, had been left powered on. Walking through that door felt a great deal like walking into a wall of cacophonous sound. It stunned her, and for a moment, she could only stand there and shake her head.

“You don’t…turn things off very often, do you, Mister Stark?” she asked a little weakly. Suddenly, she found herself bracketed by a pair of super-soldiers, with warm hands on each of her biceps and spanning her lower back.

“Whoa, whoa, easy, Selene,” Bucky murmured, concerned. “Take it easy. You okay?”

“Do you need to sit down?” Steve asked, looking in vain for an unoccupied horizontal surface.

She managed a weak chuckle. “No, I’m okay. Just…give me a minute. I didn’t expect quite so much noise in here.”

“What do you mean, noise?” Stark demanded, suddenly sounding intrigued. “There’s nothing in here making any sound.”

She waved a hand vaguely at the cluttered room. “Not sound-noise. It’s…mmn. It’s the electronics. Their fields are… You’ve got a number of different machines in here working at different pitches. Frequencies? It’s a sort of incredible dissonance. It just surprised me, that’s all. I’m okay now, guys.”

They released her, hovering close. She blinked a few times, looking around to regain her bearings while she recovered the tenuous thread that’d led her so far. When she had it, she moved straight across the room, dodging around two tables and a jumbled mess of a project to get there.

A work bench ran along the far wall, with cabinets built in underneath. The thread led her to one in particular, which she pulled open without hesitation. A jumbled pile of stained, oily rags took up the top shelf, with two boxes of shop towels occupying the bottom.

What she sought lay in the midst of the pile of rags. She had to fish a bit to find it, then withdrew and closed the cabinet. Turning, she moved back to the owner of the place and laid her prize on the bench just beside him.

In form, it looked like a cross between a phaser from Star Trek and a sonic screwdriver from Doctor Who. The engineer stared at it, obviously startled. “Now how did that wind up in there? It was supposed to be… No, wait a minute.” His eyes rose to stare at her. “How did you do that?”

She smiled. He certainly hadn’t made it easy on her. “I energized your memory of it to get a sense of its energy, and then went looking for a matching signature within the building.”

“But…you’re human?”

“As you are.”

His frown deepened, his eyes going unfocused and distant. Pepper eyed him for a moment as he absently picked up the thing she’d located for him and drifted across the room. “Mmn, I think we’ve lost him. Probably for at least a day.”

“FRIDAY! I want to see the data from those scans!” the billionaire called, as if to confirm her observation.

“Yes. We have lost him for at least a day,” she repeated. “Why don’t we go back downstairs and have lunch? It should have arrived, by now.”

“That sounds fantastic,” Selene agreed. “I would really like to get out of this room, at least. And FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Miss Selene?”

“Thank you for not helping. I’ll leave the elevators and doors to you, now.”

“You are very welcome. It was a fascinating demonstration.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she chuckled as they stepped into the elevator.


	9. Chapter 9

As Ace expected, whether Gen or the kids outside the main doors that morning did the blabbing, his association with at least one of the Avengers had made the rounds of school before lunch time. He spent his morning enduring a total lack of attention from his section – at least, attention to what they should have paid attention to. Instead, the bass singers grilled him on everything from how he’d met the Winter Soldier to whether he would introduce them.

They got most of the truth for the former, and unequivocal negatives to the latter. Even so, he suspected that any parties he threw in the next several months would have a suspiciously large turnout if he didn’t take care with invitations and who got them. At least no one really knew about the new living arrangements.

The whole situation forced him to confront the shallowness of his classmates’ thinking. By the time he got out of his choral classes and moved into his regular curriculum courses, the rumors had spread enough that the kids in those classes had heard, too. He found himself thankful for the first time ever that those classes ran more to lectures from the teachers and didn’t require much interaction between students.

He could ignore stares and pretend not to hear unsubtle whispers. Navigating the halls between classes became a lot like running an obstacle course while he tried to avoid the school’s worst gossips and brown-nosers. When he collapsed into a seat at lunch time, he felt as if the day had stretched way too long, and he still had three and a half hours to go.

A sympathetic pat on the back made him lift his head off the table and look around. Much to his relief, his closest friends had filled the seats at his table. “You okay, sweetie?” Gen asked as she settled into the seat beside him.

“Please tell me you did not do this to me,” he groaned plaintively. “Because I will murder you if this is all your fault.”

She smirked. “Not me. This is all you, riding in to school on the back of his motorcycle. Everyone and their brother knows you’re gay, honey. Did you even think about it before you took the ride?”

He dropped his head back onto the table. “It was five thirty in the morning. Who thinks at that time of day? And do you have any idea how old he is? Seriously, he’s like five times my age, or something.”

“Well, he sure doesn’t look it. Maybe…like, twice your age. But don’t worry. We’ve got your back, baby.” She patted him again, and he craned his neck around to find not only his own table full of friends, but the table behind him, too.

None of the jerks with no compunctions about asking really embarrassing questions would get anywhere near him while he tried to eat his lunch. Maybe they’d get him a half-hour of peace. He’d need it, if he wanted to make it out the other end of this day.

 _I still have to go over to Carnegie after school, too._ He barely managed to suppress a groan. _Why did it have to be like this? It’s just stupid!_

“Aw, come on!” A voice at the other side of the table caught his attention. “I just want to know if they’re sleeping together!”

 _Holy crap, I’m going to kill someone!_ Ace couldn’t help it. His head snapped up, eyes wide with outrage, to see who’d had the gall to ask a question like that. As soon as he saw the speaker, he realized he should have known. David, his ex-boyfriend, stood over there, being crowded away by the people sitting across the table. Gen patted his hand as she got up and stomped over to glare at the jerk.

“If that were any of your business, Dave, you would already know the answer,” she all but growled at him. “Since it’s _none_ of your damn business, you don’t get to ask that kind of question. What you do get to do is turn your whiney-hiney around and walk it right on away from here. Fuck. Off. Ain’t nobody got time for your bullshit.”

Since everyone sitting along that side of the table chose that moment to get up and loom, David didn’t get a chance to say anything else. Thankful, Ace let his head drop back onto his folded arms on the tabletop. He felt more than saw Gen reclaim her seat at his side. “Thanks,” he mumbled at her.

“You’re welcome. Jerk’s got some nerve, coming over here like he’s got a right,” she answered, sounding mortally offended.

He chuckled more than a little wryly. “Everybody seems to think they have the right, today. That’s probably the fifth time someone’s asked that question. On the plus side, I don’t think it could get any worse.”

Naturally, he hadn’t really considered all the implications when he’d uttered that sentence. He’d just walked down the school’s front steps at the end of the day, grateful to get the hell out of the building, when a weird clot of students at the front gate made him pause in confusion. Someone called his name a moment later, and he looked around to find Steve waving at him from beside Sam, who leaned up against a sleek silver car at the curb. One glance at the knot of his fellow students told the tale: they knew exactly who those two were, and now they also knew just who they had waited for.

 _Well. Since it can’t be helped now…_ He put on his best grin, returned the wave, and swept right by the whole group as they whispered and stared. “Steve! Sam! What are you guys doing here?” _Because seriously, what are they doing here?_

Sam tilted his head at the crowd behind him, raising an eyebrow. “That gonna give you trouble?” he asked.

Ace shrugged. “Can’t be any worse than all day today, since some of them saw me get off Bucky’s bike this morning. They’ve been a serious pain in the butt, but my friends are all cool, so I’m good. Is everything okay, though? Mom?”

“Your Ma’s fine,” Steve smiled, eyeing the knot of students over his shoulder. “She told us you had to go to Carnegie this afternoon, though, and Sam and I were headed back into Manhattan anyway, so we figured we’d pick you up and save you the train ride, if you want.”

“But only if you want to!” Sam added, disregarding the onlookers with a smirk. “You know, if you’d rather stuff your earbuds in your ears and pretend to ignore being sardined in with the unwashed tides of humanity, it’s all good, either way…”

“Yeah, right,” the young man answered with an indignant snort and a grin. This totally made up for the crap day he’d had thus far. “You guys are awesome. Thanks for this!”

Steve had already stepped aside to open the rear door, so he tossed his backpack into the seat and slid in. He didn’t, however, miss the way the good Captain’s eyes scanned the crowd, nor the look the two Avengers exchanged before Steve opened his own door and Sam moved around to climb into the driver’s seat.

 _Something’s_ _going on,_ he concluded as Sam asked how he’d liked the bike ride that morning. _Something they don’t want to tell me, or don’t want me worrying about. Man, they’re worse than Mom. At least she’ll tell me stuff, even if I can’t do anything about whatever it is. I guess they can’t know that, though. We haven’t known each other that long, anyway. Hm._

“First time I’ve ever been on a motorcycle,” he answered the question as Sam pulled away from the curb. “I was a little scared, at first, but it was fun. Did Bucky find out who was in the car this morning, though? Is that what you’re trying not to tell me about?”

They exchanged another look, and Sam smirked again while Steve chuckled a little ruefully. “Yeah, yeah, okay, Sam. You told me. So did Selene.” He shook his head. “I wanted to wait to tell you until we knew a little more, that’s all. I had every intention of someone telling you, I just wanted to know for sure.”

“Telling me what?”

“Your dad was in the car with two other guys, watching the school. The car belongs to the company he works for.”

He considered that for a moment. Somehow, it didn’t really surprise him, even if it should. He remembered Rick as someone who did whatever he wanted and didn’t care what anyone else thought even if they spoke up. It had always been his way or the highway, so to speak, and when he couldn’t get his way, he’d hit the highway instead. Which reminded him…

“I don’t have a dad. Or even a father. I had a sperm donor, and his name was Rick Hamilton. Nothing he does is going to hurt my feelings, you guys. As long as he doesn’t hurt Mom, anyway. I don’t really care what he’s up to.”

Steve winced pretty hard at that, but Sam didn’t look too surprised. He glanced into the rearview mirror. “That’s the thing, though, Ace,” he said gently. “We don’t have a lot to work with, yet, because FRIDAY is still checking on it, but it looks like he’s gotten himself in over his head with what might be some pretty bad people.”

Now Ace frowned. “Bad people like…how? It’s not like Mom and I’ve had anything to do with him in forever, anyway. We’re basically strangers.”

“We know,” the blond nodded, “but we’re not sure these people believe that. Or care. We still aren’t sure exactly who they are, but they might be the reason he’s suddenly showed up again. Your Ma’s worried they’re—”

“—after me or her for what we can do.” His frown became a scowl, and anger started as a hot coal in the pit of his stomach. “Oh. Now I get it. You think he’s the one that sent those two after me weekend before last, right? Because of whoever he owes for whatever he owes?”

“We think it’s possible,” Sam qualified. “FRIDAY hasn’t uncovered any proof one way or the other.”

“How hard did you have to push Mom before she admitted we might be targets?” He really felt curious about that. She’d made it clear to him that they had to be careful, because there would always be people who would try to exploit them for their magical ability without caring what toll it would take on them, but she also tended to be really protective of their autonomy.

She’d also given him a lecture on being careful not to so much as hint at trading on having Avengers living in their building. It had been half the reason the day he’d had today grated on him so hard. He did not want her thinking it’d been his idea to tell the whole school!

But Steve wore a faint frown, too. “Actually, she said they might be after your abilities pretty quickly.”

“We had to press pretty damn hard to get her to admit they might want her, too,” Sam added.

 _Of course you did._ For some reason, that made Ace want to laugh and cry at the same time. “Yeah, that’s Mom. Always protecting me, but never taking enough care for herself.”

Both of Sam’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. “That’s kinda what a parent does, Ace. Protect their kids.”

“I just wish she’d protect herself, for once!” It came out with more heat than he’d meant to use. He winced and sighed. “Sorry. It’s just…we’re all we’ve got, you know? She’s my only real family, and I’m all that’s left of hers. We’re it. I’m not really a little kid, anymore. I know I’m nowhere near on her level, magically, but I’m not totally helpless, either. She even knows that. She’s been training me all my life. They caught me by surprise a couple weekends ago, but I’ll be fine now with her protective charm to help and some warning. She doesn’t have to work so hard to protect me, anymore.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “The thing is…it’s…a kind of habit you get into,” he ventured, staring out the window. “Protecting someone. It’s been over seventy years since I needed it, but Bucky’s still protecting me every chance he gets. I’d only been protecting him a year or so when he fell…but I went right back to it when he came back. We can’t tell each other we don’t need protecting. We’ll just go on doing it, anyway.”

“Hell, I’ve been protecting both their stupid asses for the year and a half I’ve known these two knuckleheads,” Sam agreed. “And my sisters and brother, all my life. It’s just a thing you do, when it’s in you to do it. Your Mom probably doesn’t even realize she’s doing it quite the way you see it. Pretty sure she doesn’t see it that way. What you gotta remember, Ace, is that now that you’re old enough, you can help protect her, sometimes. Understand, though, that sometimes protecting her is gonna mean protecting yourself first. You can’t help her if you’re already in trouble, right?”

 _Huh. Hadn’t thought about that._ He considered it. “I…guess so. She’s just really bad at letting anyone take care of her.”

“Guess we’re gonna have to help each other with that, then, huh?” Steve suggested, grinning over his shoulder.

Ace blinked. “Wait…what?” _Did he mean what I think he meant?_ _He can’t possibly know what he’s actually suggesting…_

“She’s our friend, Ace, same as you,” the lead Avenger insisted. “You’ve probably noticed, we tend to defend what we think of as ours. The planet, the country, this city, and now the two of you.”

The young man flicked a disbelieving glance to the dark eyes in the rearview mirror. Sam shrugged and shook his head. “Hey, don’t look at me. I do what he does, just slower.” It had the sound of a well-worn joke. Steve’s snicker confirmed that, and the dark man grinned. “Point is, you could say we’ve kinda claimed the two of you. It happens. Just ask Jane Foster or Darcy Lewis.”

“But…you guys…” _Okay, wow, how do I even try to explain this to them?_ They watched him, expectant. He took a deep breath. “Um. Just…don’t let her hear you say it like that, okay? If you’re not careful, she’ll claim you, and I’m pretty sure that’s gonna mean something a whole lot different than you have in mind.”

Immediately, Steve’s expression dipped into a concerned frown. “No, Ace, I didn’t mean to offend—”

“No, no!” Ace waved his hands, mind racing to try to figure out how to explain. “No, she won’t be offended, guys! She’d…actually probably be really thrilled. It’s just…uh… Hm. She means it a lot more like…um. An adoption? Sort of? Wow. This didn’t seem nearly so complicated until I had to try to explain it, and I’m probably making it sound insane. It’s…not crazy, I promise. You’ll just…she’ll treat you all like family. Close family. And I’m not saying I’d mind, ‘cause I think it’d be awesome. Just…don’t let her hear you all claiming us if you want the distance being just friends of our family will give you. It’s…um…a Folk thing.”

“A Folk th—you mean a ‘magic people’ thing?” Sam asked.

“Close enough.” Now he rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, I probably shouldn’t even have said anything. That all probably sounded really weird.”

“Maybe…start by explaining ‘Folk’?” Steve suggested, looking intrigued.

So he did, just as he had with Bucky that morning. He figured his mother had let them into her Work Room to watch her Work, so she had to be okay with them knowing the basics, at least. He’d barely finished his explanation of the term, though, when they pulled around to the employees’ access lot for Carnegie Hall.

Promising to answer whatever questions they had the next chance he got, he thanked them for the ride and headed for the entrance. It didn’t escape him that they waited for him to get inside before they drove off. He wondered again if he should even have said anything, because whether they realized it or not, the way they’d acted looked a whole lot more like his mother’s version of “claiming” than not.

Heartened by the thought, he tried not to get his hopes up too far and headed for his locker. The Hall had a charity concert event scheduled for less than a week away, and everyone still had a lot to do before they could relax. While he worked, everything else would just have to wait. 

* * *

Sam just happened to stay late at the Tower, working with Tony on changes they wanted to make to his wings. Unsurprisingly, given the events of the day, the engineer really didn’t have his mind in the discussion. He kept asking for more information about Selene and her capabilities. Since the flier didn’t know any more than she’d demonstrated in her basement, the lab, and what Bucky had told him, he couldn’t really say much.

The inattention had provided some amusement, though the novelty had worn thin pretty quickly. After that, it just got annoying, and his patience had gone long before he felt satisfied that at least FRIDAY had gotten everything that needed looking over. When Tony finally pulled his head out of his ass, he’d be able to get the short version from the AI.

The only good thing about staying late the way he had was that it put him driving out of the underground parking garage at just about the right time to intercept Ace as he left Carnegie. If the kid would let him, of course.

“Hey, FRIDAY?”

“How may I help you, Master Sergeant Wilson?” came the immediate reply.

Tony had insisted on installing a connection to the AI in his car shortly after Steve and Bucky had purchased their fancy motorcycle helmets. He’d allowed it, mostly to mollify the billionaire and get him off the super-soldiers’ backs a little, and deliberately omitted the fact that he’d bought a similar helmet that would hook into their system whenever they all went riding together. Now, however, that connection to the AI would come in handy.

“Would you use my phone to text Ace? Say, ‘Hey Ace, it’s Sam. I’m heading home from the Tower. Interested in a ride?’ If he responds, read it out to me?”

“Certainly, Sir.”

It didn’t take long to get an answer. “And miss out on the nighttime subway after the day I’ve had? I would love that. Thank you! Meet you where you dropped me off?”

Sam chuckled and shook his head, already on his way to Carnegie. “Tell him I’ll be there, and give him my ETA, will you, FRIDAY?”

“Done, Sir.”

“Thanks.”

“You are quite welcome, Master Sergeant Wilson.”

As he negotiated traffic, which had abated only a little thanks to the hour, he considered the little family he, Bucky, and Steve had decided to quietly bodyguard. The thought made him chuckle. They hadn’t really talked about it, just moved into protective mode with no discussion needed. Selene hadn’t forbidden them from doing so, exactly, only from moving into her building solely for that reason.

They hadn’t lied to or mislead her about it, either. At the time, they hadn’t really intended to do what Bucky had started that morning. It had just…sort of happened. They hadn’t even really organized it, merely tweaked their travel plans to put themselves where they could make a credible claim of heading in the same general direction as Ace.

It had only gone on for the one day, thus far, and he knew that excuse had already grown weak. The young man had very likely already worked out what they were doing, and Sam wasn’t fool enough to believe Selene wouldn’t notice sooner or later. Probably sooner, if Ace told her about all the transportation.

The Thomases were sharp, and the three Avengers hadn’t exactly been subtle. Okay, they’d been the opposite of subtle, at least with Ace. So far as he knew, none of them had worked out how to shadow Selene without just up and talking to her about it.

 _Actually,_ he thought as he pulled into the Carnegie car park, _that might not even be possible. Given what she did at the Tower today, it might be better if we just—hold on, what’s this?_

A loose collection of people standing beside a trash can with an ash tray installed in its top about five meters away from the door had caught his attention. Other cars still sat in the lot, with a badged Carnegie employee moving between them here and there. One knot of four had just passed him, in fact, chatting and laughing. He’d noted them all and dismissed them one by one, but this group differed significantly.

Two of them held lit cigarettes, one appeared to talk on a phone, but none of them really looked like tired employees having a last smoke before the homeward commute…and he couldn’t see a single Carnegie badge among them. He swung the car around and pulled up to the curb directly opposite the door, still watching the odd group. They kept looking around, eyes scanning the lot, watching alertly every time someone walked out the door.

 _Damn, amateur hour. These people don’t know what they’re doing._ _I would never have noticed a bunch of Hydra goons,_ he thought. _Who the hell are they? Hm. They’re watching. I’ll give them something to watch, see what they do._

“Hey FRIDAY? Things might be about to get a little hairy, here. If they do, I’d appreciate it if you’d call me some backup.”

“Of course, Sir.”

He got out of the car, moving around the passenger’s side to lean against the front fender. For a moment, he just stood there. Then, very deliberately, he turned his attention to the group gathered around the ash can. Wearing a big smile, he made eye contact with every one of them.

Two gave him a surprised blink and a nod of acknowledgement, but most flinched and averted their gaze. Definitely amateurs. Movement at the periphery of his vision alerted him just as the glass door swung open again.

Ace blinked in surprise as he came out of the building. “Oh! Hey, Sam. You coulda just parked, you didn’t have to be right here. I coulda found you.”

“Nah, it was no problem.” He reached for the door handle. “C’mon, hop in and we’ll get outta here.” He made sure to depress the passenger door lock before he closed Ace into his seat. Last thing he needed was one of the watchers getting the bright idea they could haul the kid out of the car while he had his back turned, getting around to the other side.

Once he’d slid into his own seat and closed his door, he nodded at the group he’d noticed as he reached for his seatbelt. “You know any of those people at the ash can?”

Ace glanced up. “Nope. I mean, they’re basically the same group that’re always there when I leave here, but I don’t actually know any of them. That’s where I recognized the two who jumped me from. They used to hang out with that bunch all the time.”

“Seatbelt on? Okay, we’re outta here.” Sam checked over his shoulder and pulled away from the curb. “In case you’re wondering, it looked like the whole group was watching the door. I might’ve spooked them a little, though.”

“I hope so. They’re always staring.” The young man leaned back in his seat with a weary sigh. “Maybe now they’ll go find someone else to stare at.”

Sam doubted it. “Long day?”

“Oh. My gods.” The exasperation in his tone nearly made Sam laugh. “Some kids at school saw me get off Bucky’s bike this morning, and everybody knew about it before freakin’ lunchtime. The whole stupid school acted like my life was suddenly their business. Sometimes, I really hate people. Today was definitely one of those days.”

Therein lay one of the biggest drawbacks to their not-really-a-plan. Sam grimaced sympathetically. “Sorry, man. That’s…kind of one of the problems with having Avengers as neighbors. People seem to see us as a kind of public property.”

“People are rude and bloody damn nosy,” Ace retorted. “And you’re friends, not just neighbors. More than that, you’re people, not property. I spent most of my day at school telling people to take a flying fu—er, long walk off a short pier.”

The counsellor snorted, amused. “I hate to say it, but if you’re seen with us, that’s going to keep happening. We get that stuff a lot.”

“Guess I’ll just get used to telling people off, then. Not about to let other people being assholes choose my friends for me.”

By now, Sam had started to be impressed. Though given who had raised him, it probably shouldn’t surprise him that this kid had a better understanding than most his age. Even so, this raised his estimation a bit higher. Not many teenagers could see that far beyond their own small worlds. Hell, not many adults could manage that. “Thank you, Ace. That means a lot.”

A glance showed that a faint flush stained the young man’s face. “It shouldn’t have to. Mom’d say the same thing, too, so don’t worry about her reaction.”

That brought a chuckle. “Yeah, I somehow had that feeling. She came to the Tower today and met Tony.”

Ace started, turning to stare at him with wide eyes. “Are you serious _?_ She didn’t tell me she was gonna do that! Was it hilarious? Holy crap, I wish I coulda been there!”

So Sam spent the rest of the drive talking about what he’d seen of Selene’s visit to the Tower. The kid’s mood seemed to have taken a definite turn for the better by the time they pulled up to park in the alley beside the building and headed inside. He wore a grin as they went around to the front and Sam’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Ace already had his keys out, so he checked the device while the young man let them into the building.

“Oh, hey, good timing,” the medic commented, stepping through the door. “Looks like I need to stop by your place on my way upstairs.”

But Ace had stopped in the middle of the hallway. Sam nearly ran right into him as he turned from making sure the door latched behind them. “Whoa! Ace? What’s—”

“Mom.” The young man murmured, frowning. “She’s…wow, she’s really angry. It feels like someone tried to disturb her Wards today. I’ll bet that’s what she’s upset about.”

“Tried to?”

That earned a smug look. “Tried. Nobody’s getting through Mom’s Wards on her own home. Feels like they really tried hard, too. That’s probably why she’s so…huh. Angry, worried, and maybe even a little afraid? Or…no, maybe just concerned. That one’s weird.”

“You go through your whole day doing that?” Sam asked, curious.

“Holy crap, no way.” Ace looked horrified by the very thought. “Not if I can help it. In a building full of teenagers? I would lose my mind. I keep it locked down most of the time, unless I think I need it.”

He shrugged, gesturing with his keys. “It’s part of what I do to heal people – hard to heal someone who can’t tell you what’s wrong if you also don’t know what they’re feeling, right? But keeping it under wraps like that sort of feels like holding your hand closed all day, so I let it go when I get home. Mom’s Wards on the building and our apartment, and mine on my room, do that work for me when I’m here.”

They both started in surprise when the door jerked open before he’d even touched his key to the lock. Selene stood there in blue jeans and a faded flannel shirt, fire in her eyes and her generous mouth set in a hard line.

“Good, you’re home. Come on in,” she greeted them brusquely. She flipped the long braid of her hair back over her shoulder. “Thank you for bringing him home, Sam. I appreciate you guys looking out for him, even though you don’t have to.”

Okay, so she’d already noticed what they’d done.

Sam followed Ace into the front room, where Dusk and Sable greeted them with wriggling, vocal enthusiasm. Steve and Bucky sat on the couch as though they’d been there a while, two coffee cups on the table in front of them. Since it’d been Bucky’s text that’d asked him to stop by, that made sense. The blond wore a grim expression, but his boyfriend looked outright angry. They nodded greetings, but both gave the lion’s share of their attention to Selene.

Their landlady closed the door firmly and moved to what seemed to be her customary seat in an armchair. She paused there. “Have a seat if you like, Sam. Can I get you something? Coffee, a soda?”

He shook his head as he moved around the end of the couch, headed for the vacant chair. “Nah, I’m good. Everything okay?”

“Not exactly,” she answered, eyes going to Ace. “But it’s not necessarily bad, either. Ace, go put your things down and come right back. Did you get your homework done?”

“Not quite. I still have a few problems on my math assignment.”

“Okay. I’ll make this quick, then. Go, go.”

Ace vanished down the hall, and his mother collapsed into her chair with a sigh. “Ugh. I am so done with today,” she groaned, scrubbing at her face with one hand. After a moment, she eyed them from between her fingers. “I haven’t asked. How was Tony, after I left? I hope he wasn’t too insufferable.”

They all chuckled wryly at that. “You really threw him for a loop, doll,” Bucky answered with a smirk, then winced when Steve elbowed him in the ribs. “He buried himself in his lab, and nobody saw him unless they deliberately went in to dig him out.”

“Can’t get his attention even if you do dig him out,” Sam snorted. “That’s why I left so late, tonight. I had a meeting with him about changes to my wings, but he kept asking about how you do what you do.”

She grimaced. “Sorry. I didn’t really want to be such a showboat, but we need him to get over this so we can work together. I figured we wouldn’t really get anywhere if I didn’t give him a show that’d get his attention. How is it he can have so damn much intelligence, and still have so small a mind?”

“Well, you got his attention, all right.” Steve shook his head, smiling wryly. “Probably for the best in the long run, since you’re right, he doesn’t take anything seriously that doesn’t engage his attention for more than ten seconds. He’s just going to obsess for a day or two.”

“So long as he comes out of it in a day or two. I really don’t want to have to rattle his cage any more. We have better things to do.”

Ace came back down the hall then. “Where’s Gen, Mom?” he asked, looking concerned.

“Having dinner with her mother.” She waved a hand, beckoning him into the room. “She said she wanted to talk to her about getting her own place, and I guess her Mom’s got tomorrow off. She’s gonna stay there the night and see how things go. If I’m honest, I think she’s going to start packing her stuff.”

“Oh. So why are the dogs sticking to you like glue?”

His mother looked down to where Dusk and Sable had plastered themselves to either side of her legs, one furry head on each of her knees. She sighed and reached out to pet them. “Probably because they know I’m pissed, but not at anyone here, so they’re confused about what to do. Sorry guys. I know.”

Looking up, she fixed Ace with a firm look. He sank to a seat on the opposite end of the couch from Bucky and Steve. “So. You’ve probably already noticed someone tried to get through the Wards.”

At his nod, she continued. “Good. It apparently happened sometime today after we’d all left the house. I can’t tell whether they actually physically came to the property, or not, but they left smears of power all over. I spent half the afternoon cleaning up after them. I also can’t tell what they thought they would accomplish. Whatever the source of their power, it feels cobbled together. Patchwork, almost, though it seems to work well enough. I won’t say seamlessly, since I’ve noticed differences between the… Bah, I’m running on. Sorry, guys.”

“You’ve had a long day,” Steve excused her. “It’s okay.”

She smiled at him. “I have, that. Okay. So, Ace.” The young man straightened. “We already know someone’s made you a target. Until we get this mess sorted, you are not to go anywhere without an adult present. I’ll be taking you to school, picking you up, that sort of thing. You’re around enough others at school and Carnegie that I’m not too worried anyone’ll try anything, but—let me see your necklace, please.”

His eyes widened, but he reached up to unclasp a silver chain at the back of his neck. A small pendant flashed silver as it came out from under his shirt, and he rose to hand it to her. The moment it touched her palm, her eyes jerked up to his face. “Ace! Someone touched you with the same power that touched my Wards! Did someone—”

“No, Mom, I’m fine!” he cut her off, eyes wide. “Holy crap, I didn’t even know. There wasn’t—” He cut off, head swiveling to look at Sam. The medic’s eyes widened as he realized what the kid had thought of.

Her gaze had gone back to the pendant in her hand. “It feels…experimental. Just…testing. It was only a brush.”

“I noticed a group of people that looked kind of out of place when I picked him up from Carnegie,” Sam told her. He explained what he’d noticed, and how he’d handled the situation.

While he spoke, she frowned faintly down at the necklace in her hand. Though she nodded in the right places, something about the way her eyes didn’t seem to focus told him that he didn’t have her full attention. A tension in the air raised goosebumps on his skin. He didn’t know what, exactly, but he had the feeling she was doing something.

“How many were there?” Steve asked, though his eyes remained on Selene.

“Men or women?” Bucky added, just as focused on their landlady as the blond.

“Six, four men and two women.” Sam told them, unable to decide where he wanted to look. Finally, he settled on Selene, who looked up at that moment. The tension faded immediately.

“Did any of them seem to pay Ace any particular attention?” she asked, handing the necklace back to her son.

“They all did. Like I said, they didn’t really seem to know what they’re doing. They all reacted when Ace came out the door, and I know it because I’d just gotten done staring them all down.”

Ace had put his necklace back on, but he still stood in front of his mother, eyes wide and mouth open in surprise. He held the pendant in his closed hand. “Whoa _._ Seriously, Mom?”

“Yes, seriously,” she answered firmly, mouth set in a grim line. “I’m done playing with these idiots. They are stalking my son, and they’ve started to get handsy. Well, two can play at that game.”

“Whoa, wait, handsy?” Bucky asked, frowning. “And how are you playing the game? What game?”

He and Steve both leaned forward on the couch. “Selene, what—” the blond began, cutting off when she raised a hand.

“They have made the mistake of trying to play _my_ game, guys.”  Her expression had gone steely. Somehow, that look on her surprised Sam. She’d always seemed so warm and open. Now, she just looked…dangerous. Maybe even a little predatory. “I am a Guardian, and I protect what is mine. They’ve stepped into my territory. Whoever hunts my son is going to find that they have made a very bad choice.”

Ace moved back to his seat, still looking a little stunned. “She said they’d touched me with power today,” he explained. “Anyone who tries that again is going to get…um…”

“A metaphorical slap across the face,” Selene finished. “And it will alert me immediately. I’ll be able to act on it right away.”

The three Avengers exchanged a complicated three-way look. Sam felt distinctly unsettled. The situation, if it had involved normal things like thugs lurking on street corners and home break-ins, would have been right up their alley to deal with. Too simple, even.

If his instinct to do something about it had started poking him – and it had – then the two super-soldiers had to feel practically itchy with the need to act. But what she’d just described fell so far outside the realm they could deal with, it left them floundering. And then, it got just that much worse.

Selene reached for a small cloth packet on the table beside her. “Which brings me to the reason I asked you all to stop by tonight.” She leaned forward far enough to lay three small objects on the coffee table, one in front of each of them. They clicked against the hardwood. “I made these for you this afternoon. I’m not going to insist you carry them, I just want you to have the option. I know you didn’t know exactly what you’d signed up for when you decided to be seen protecting Ace today, but I really do appreciate what you did.”

“That said,” she continued, “you’ve stepped into the line of fire of things you aren’t prepared for and really don’t have much defense against. That’s what these are. Protective charms like Ace’s pendant. They’ll keep most esoteric castings from sticking to you, prevent spell-tracking and –watching, and deliver a pretty nasty sting to anyone foolish enough to try reaching out to touch. They’ll let me know if anyone tries any of those things. On the surface, they’re just a warn-off. If that bit’s ignored, though, all the rest comes into play.”

“Crap, Mom, no wonder you’re tired.” Ace looked worried.

Sam leaned forward to pick up the little…stone carving. Shaped like a dog and no larger than the first joint of his thumb, it had its head thrown back in a howl. She’d carved it out of reddish stone with somewhat minimal details that he could see, though he could make out a star carved into its chest and some kind of channels incised around neck and body.

He looked up to find his teammates examining theirs – Steve’s looked dull white, Bucky’s shiny black. Both super soldiers looked concerned and dubious. The medic understood. Her desire to protect them seemed sweet, but…

“Selene,” Steve began, “this is really nice of you, but if it tired you out this badly…”

“It coulda waited. You didn’t have to do this. Just telling us woulda been fine,” Bucky finished for him. “Wouldn’ta changed anything.”

She waved her hand again. “This is what friends do, isn’t it? Stick up for each other, watch out for one another? I promise you, if there’s a physical fight to be had, I will let you all know. That’s your arena.”

Her expression hardened again. “But this brand of esoteric is mine, and I won’t leave you guys unprotected any more than you would Ace and me. Call it my due diligence, if you want. They’ll work fine in a pocket or a uniform pouch, or I have cord you can use to turn them into necklaces or bracelets. So long as they’re on your person, they’ll do what I made them to do. I can, so I have, and it’s up to you to decide whether you carry them or not.”

They exchanged another look, and as they slipped the little sculptures into their pockets, Sam knew Steve and Bucky would carry them. It didn’t seem right to waste the effort she’d clearly put in, especially since it wouldn’t cost anything to tuck them in a pocket, even in their uniforms. He’d carry his for the same reasons.

Besides, as strange as it seemed to think that all that protection could sit inside such a tiny little package, it didn’t make sense to turn down any edge they could get in whatever sort of fight they’d stumbled into. If it really did what she said it would, it’d be worth carrying. And if her own kid wore something like it…as odd as it felt to wrap his brain around it, he would believe it did what she said. So he tucked the little figure in a pocket.

She smiled at them all, and suddenly the dangerous predator had vanished, replaced by a weary woman at the end of a rough day. “There’s another reason I wanted to get those to you guys. I don’t want…whatever this is…” Her hand floated vaguely between Ace, herself, and the street outside the front windows. “…to interfere in what we’re investigating on the Lower East Side. Whatever’s going on over there is bad, and I have the feeling we’ll need to get moving on it soon.”

“I don’t know why, yet.” She paused to grimace apologetically. “That’s just the sense I get. That it’s urgent and growing more so. We have to deal with it, and I do not want you guys too distracted or compromised by this to be able to deal safely and effectively with that. Because I also think you guys are going to be more use dealing with it than I will. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Steve leaned back in his seat, frowning in irritation. “You’ve still got more than we have, right now. It’s starting to worry me. Tony was looking, but…”

“But I distracted him.” Selene sighed. “Dammit.”

“Nah, he’s left most of it to FRIDAY, anyway.” Bucky shook his head. “Problem is that there’s a lot of suspiciously sealed legal action goin’ on with that property. She keeps havin’ to divert inquiries into other channels to get around the mess. And she’s tryin’ to do it legally, first, before she breaks out the hacking.”

“I just don’t like knowing there’s a problem and not being able to plan for it,” the blond admitted. “I’m sure FRIDAY will come through. She always does. We’ll have something to work from soon.”

Their landlady nodded and stifled a yawn. “Mmph. Sorry, guys. It’s late. I’ve gotten through everything I had. Unless you have something to discuss, we should call it a night. You’ve all got to get up at Ridiculous-Thirty tomorrow.”

They all headed for the door, and Sam kept his amusement to himself when he realized that each of the Avengers filed into the hallway with one hand in a pocket. 


	10. Chapter 10

“That is what I am trying to explain to you, Anthony,” a rich, baritone voice said patiently as Steve got off the elevator in the Tower with Bucky and Sam. They’d returned to the common floor after lunch, hoping to get a little paperwork finished before sneaking out early. It had been a miserably boring day with very little in the way of developments for any of the various situations on their radar. That, it seemed, had just changed. The cultured voice went on as they moved toward the living area.

“The power you describe is nothing at all like the energies I am accustomed to working with. Indeed, the electrical signals and frequencies you maintain here in your Tower interfere with the magics I use so much that I could never accomplish very much here without a heavily shielded—Threads of Isis, who is _that_?” The speaker, seated on a couch opposite Tony with his back to the door, whipped around to face them as they stepped into the room.

“Good afternoon, Doctor Strange,” Steve greeted him politely. “Tony didn’t tell us you’d be coming by the Tower today.” He shifted, trying not to show his unease as the Sorcerer Supreme looked between them with confusion. He’d never really felt all that comfortable around the neurosurgeon-turned-magister. The man just seemed too pretentious for his taste.

“Good…afternoon, Captain,” the Doctor answered after a moment. He looked confused. “Sergeants. What—” He cut himself off and rose, turning to face them. “Please forgive me for staring. I’ve just had the strongest impression someone else came into the room with you, just now.”

The three soldiers exchanged a look while Tony sulked behind a large, steaming coffee cup. The engineer didn’t look like he’d slept recently. Steve shook his head. “It was just the three of us on the elevator,” he answered.

But the suit-clad mystic shook his head and stepped around the couch to move closer. “No, there is definitely another energy here,” he half-muttered, frowning.

“Yeah, yeah, the Three Musketeers probably have all the energy in the world,” Tony groused from his seat. “Can we please get back to the reason I called you in?”

Strange half-turned to answer him. “That’s just it. The energy I’ve felt since they stepped off the elevator is precisely the sort you’re speaking of. It’s Earthy, grounded, and exceedingly powerful on this plane. It’s so strong, it felt as if…ah, no, I see. Perhaps…an object? Has one of you acquired something strange recently?”

Steve blinked, realizing all at once just what the man must have sensed. He’d nearly forgotten about the thing. A sharp inhale from Sam on his right and a muffled grunt from Bucky on his left suggested that they’d realized, too. He suppressed a sigh and reached into his pocket as the mystic turned back to look at them.

“If I didn’t know better, I would say that you had—”

Steve finally located the little stone carving and pulled it out, holding his hand out flat to display it. Doctor Strange broke off speaking to stare as first Bucky, then Sam, reached out to display their little stones, too. The blond had to work to suppress a smirk at the dumbfounded expression their visitor wore. “Is this what you meant, Doctor?” he asked, all innocence.

“…The Wolf...” the former surgeon breathed, clearly awed. A heavily-beringed hand reached out to hover over the little white rock in the Captain’s hand, then hastily withdrew without touching to clasp its match behind his back. Grey eyes darted from hand to hand intently. “You have found The Wolf and earned its protection! Where? How? Do you have any idea of how rare and precious those totems are?”

Three hands closed protectively over three stone carvings simultaneously, dipping back into pockets a moment later. The Sorcerer Supreme looked disappointed at that, but Steve gestured at the couches. “Why don’t we all sit down, and you can tell us?” he suggested.

“I’m gonna get a drink, first,” Bucky announced gruffly. “Anyone want anything while I’m up?”

They settled on the couches a few minutes later, with Tony glowering at them all. The soldiers ignored him, keeping their attention on the mystic who considered the ceiling in thought for a long moment. Finally, he sighed.

“You ask about The Wolf, but I’m afraid I can tell you little beyond rumors and speculation within the magical community,” he began. “The Wolf is an intensely private practitioner who works most often from a distance, adept at concealment and misdirection. They—”

“She,” Bucky broke in.

Strange blinked. “I beg pardon?”

“Not ‘they’. She.”

“Ah. I see. She.” That seemed to perplex the Doctor again, and he frowned at the floor for a moment before continuing. “There is no trace to suggest a woman. Interesting. Very well. She prefers to work from anonymity, accepting only a very few people into their – ah, her – inner circle. Those she accepts are always very loyal and speak of her as little as possible. Her position is…hm, something like mine, in that she is a Guardian.”

He gestured, and the rings on his hand seemed to sparkle a little more than the ambient light could account for. “I focus outward, defending our dimension from extra-dimensional threats. She focuses inward to protect against mystical forces originating within our own realm which pose threats to the natural order. A handful of practitioners like her live scattered around our dimension, keeping watch over territories proportional to their esoteric strength. Together, they form…hm, a sort of immune system for the body of this plane of existence and our planet, specifically.”

“Why do you know her as ‘The Wolf’?” Steve asked, thinking of Dusk and Sable.

“Largely because the esoteric community holds that she embodies that creature’s traits,” the mystic answered readily. “Very little happens within her territory that she does not notice. Yet she has proven elusive, nearly impossible to locate without invitation. The common wisdom holds that if one finds oneself within her sphere of influence, one should tread very lightly. If one falls under her eye, tread lighter still. And if she hunts, she is relentless, focused, and tireless. It is best to pray she does not hunt you.”

He shrugged. “What she wants, she will have, and once possessed, is rarely released. There are tales that speak of her viciousness, of violent, bloody ends to dealings with and around her. Yet those who claim to have worked with her, whom she has assisted or even rescued, speak of nothing but her warmth, loyalty, and selflessness. When they can be persuaded to speak at all, of course. The dichotomy is, in part, why her legend has grown so much in magical circles.”

“Okay, so she’s a big deal, very strong woo-woo,” Tony broke in. “But how does she do what she does? What’s the mechanism?”

Strange turned his attention to the engineer. “You seek a scientific answer to phenomena you do not understand. While that is admirable, there are some things which simply do not have answers we fallible mortals have the capacity to comprehend. She manipulates energy fields, much as I do. As you do, with your wires and wireless signals. We use our minds, our will, as our primary tools. Beyond that, I cannot give you a true accounting of what she does, or how. I have never so much as met her, let alone seen her Working. Nor is there any guarantee I could explain it to your satisfaction, even if I had.”

“That doesn’t make sense!” the billionaire half-shouted, coming to his feet. He started pacing across the length of the couch arrangement. “Look, you all work in this universe, at least mostly, right? She does, anyway, and that’s who I’m vetting, here. Same universe, same damn rules! Whatever she does, she has to follow the same natural laws as the rest of us! Conductivity! Signal transmission! Wavelengths…it all has to behave the same way.”

The Doctor eyed him for a long moment. “And what did your tests show? The scans your Tower spirit made at your behest?”

Tony stopped short, turning to glower at the mystic. “FRIDAY is a computer, not a spirit. And the scans show nothing. But they’re basic scans, and she has to have used something less typical. It’s the only way it would have gone undetected.”

“You define those rules, as a scientist,” Strange pointed out. “Test and refine your hypotheses until you believe you understand the rule. When enough others have followed your steps and reproduced your results, you call what you have learned a law. Yet who makes those laws for you to discover and define?”

“Who makes—” The engineer scoffed. “Try ‘what’, Strange. I’m not getting into that metaphysical crap with you. It’s physics. Universal laws for how energy and matter interact. It’s just the way nature works.”

The mystic smiled. “Nature. Precisely. Nature makes the rules.”

“Obviously.”

“Now, how if you are an embodiment of Nature?”

“You’re getting into metaphysics again.”

“Bear with me. She could not have the power she has if Nature had not granted it, surely you must agree with that.”

“Golden Boy and Sargecicle over there wouldn’t have the power they have if—”

“If science hadn’t granted it them, yes, I am aware. Science, which can only act within the laws of nature.”

Steve tried not to let the turn of conversation offend him. It’d come close to Tony’s long-ago jab that everything special about him had come out of a bottle. Still, the engineer had called Doctor Strange in to consult about Selene, not him. When Bucky twitched at his side, he set a hand on the sniper’s knee and shook his head.

The billionaire stared at his consultant. “You’re really stretching that.”

“Not beyond the bounds of your own admission.”

He sighed. “All right. I’ll give you that.”

“Yet The Wolf has held her power since birth. Her state is entirely natural, a gift from Nature itself. So it is with all this plane’s esoteric guardians. Nature makes the laws, but it also enforces them, even permits them to bend or break at need.”

“Natural laws are absolute! You don’t just randomly break them!”

“And perhaps that is why you do not understand, Anthony. The only laws you seem willing to consider are absolutes. How difficult, for all your intelligence, to have so small a mind, after all.”

Steve nearly swallowed his tongue, trying not to choke on laughter. Judging by the strangled snorts from either side of him, Sam and Bucky didn’t manage to suppress their own amusement. Unfortunately, that set the blond off. He burst into laughter, sagging against his boyfriend when the utterly offended look on Tony’s face pushed him too far. That just made the brunet and their medic friend even worse.

The offended expression turned sour, and the billionaire glanced back and forth between them and their mystical visitor. “I think you broke them.”

“S…Sorry…Tony…” Sam managed between gales of laughter. “It’s not… Damn…you should see…your face!”

“What the Doc…just said…” Bucky choked.

“She said…almost the same…exact thing!” Steve wheezed.

Doctor Strange chuckled then. “I begin to believe I would like The Wolf.”

“She’d just get under your skin the same way she drives me up the damn wall,” Tony groused, glaring at the hysterical trio on the couch.

“Doubtful. My mind is not so small.”

Another offended glare sent them off into a renewed fit of laughter. Steve hadn’t laughed like that in some time. It felt good, though he felt at least a little badly that it had come at Tony’s expense. Even _if_ the man had more than earned it. Despite getting dragged seventy years into a future he should never have had, Steve hadn’t managed to stay as hidebound as Stark tried to be about magic.

The laughter went on for another moment or two. When it began to die down, Doctor Strange turned to the three soldiers once more. “What I have told you about The Wolf, I know only second- or even third-hand. Today is the first time I have ever sensed her aura, though I shall have to commend the one who described it to me well enough that I recognized it on the talismans you carry. I cannot emphasize enough how rare those are. I have heard of only one other made by her hand, ever, and my understanding is that she has been active as a full Guardian for more than twenty years.”

He opened his mouth to say more, but paused and frowned faintly as though something had just occurred to him. Steve felt an odd thread of foreboding run down his spine. “I have only one more piece of information to give you,” the former surgeon continued after a moment.

Fixing each of them with a very solemn expression, he waited until he had their full attention. “It is this: beings such as this realm’s Guardians are rare and precious treasures, unfortunately and quite often coveted by the less savory elements of magical society for the nature and strength of their power. Like anything in nature, they can be captured, corrupted, their abilities twisted to serve other purposes. By their very purpose, they are opposed to such use, so the corruption is a singularly foul violation. It would be…difficult to survive it for very long. Although surviving, for a Guardian, might be the worse fate.”

Steve got the message, loud and clear. Strange didn’t know about Ace, but he’d just as good as said that Selene could be a target because of her very nature. Except that he didn’t care about her power, whatever magical ability she had.

What he cared about, with a growing intensity he had tried not to examine too closely, had absolutely nothing to do with her abilities and everything to do with her personality. She and her son were good people, friendly, accepting, creative, genuine. They’d never asked for anything but friendship in return, never made a single demand.

She hadn’t even insisted they carry the little stone…wolves. He realized suddenly that they could be dogs or wolves, but the thought made the wolf interpretation feel right. So. She hadn’t even insisted they carry the little stone wolves, merely offered them as gifts and left the choice up to them.

 _And she’s only ever made one other before, aside from Ace’s,_ he thought as they thanked the Doctor for his time and excused themselves. They left Tony to further interrogate his guest and headed for the conference room where they’d left their laptops set up when they’d gone to lunch. _Then we decided to protect him, and she got worried we’d put ourselves in the line of fire. So she nearly wiped herself out by making three, and then handed them over like they’re no big deal. Except, according to Strange, they are a Very Big Deal. Ace sure seemed to think they were, too, now that I’m thinking about it._

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky whuffed as he flopped into his chair. He looked pale as his head rolled along the back to fix Steve with a wry look. “She’s a female version of you, back when you were sickly, punk. She just happens to have magic chops to back it up.”

“She’s not going around picking fights, though,” the blond pointed out as he settled into his own seat. “It sort of sounds more like you, running around finishing fights.”

“And you’re both trying to ignore the giant elephant in the room,” Sam pointed out calmly, his attention apparently fixed on the laptop in front of him. “I kinda thought you’d both gotten over that.”

Bucky closed his eyes, expression twisting. “Selene’s a target, and they probably aren’t tryin’ to kill her.”

Steve’s heart contracted in his chest. He knew the implications of that sole fact would get to Bucky. They tore at him, too. “But they’ve been going for Ace, not Selene.”

Metal creaked ominously as the brunet opened one eye to look at him. “Any idea what they coulda done with me if they’d had you, too?”

That nearly drove the air out of his lungs. Bucky’d thought he’d died. He’d thought Bucky’d died. If either of them had known the other had survived, if Hydra had held them both to use against each other… “Oh,” he huffed weakly.

“Yeah.” Bucky’s voice sounded hoarse. “Oh.”

“You guys think that’s what’s going on?” Sam asked into the heavy silence that followed. “Think they want Ace to control Selene? I mean, Ace’s abilities are pretty damn valuable, by themselves. If they know what he can do, it could still be about him. They might be doing all this watching and waiting because of Selene, because they don’t want to poke the bear. Uh, Wolf.”

“Or you take the cub to lure the mother,” the former assassin rasped. He looked ill, and Steve wanted to go over and hold him, to swear it wouldn’t happen. “Ace isn’t a fighter, doesn’t even have any magic to fight with. He’s a soft target, a whole lot easier to take down.”

“Actually…” Sam paused, looking thoughtful. “I’ve wondered about that. One of the things they kept reminding us of in the Pararescue Pipeline is that we’re medics, so we know the body. We can put it back together, but that makes us at least theoretically good at taking it apart. I’m…kind of wondering if Ace can, too, and they just haven’t said anything to keep from freaking us out.”

That…did seem a little disturbing. Steve couldn’t really see Ace wanting to do something like that, though. “Do you think Selene would have taught him something like that?” he asked, wishing they didn’t have to have this conversation. “It doesn’t seem…”

“…like something she’d do?” The medic shrugged. “Maybe not. He’s an intelligent kid, though. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t think of it himself, if someone pushed him hard enough.”

“They’d have to push him damn hard,” Bucky growled. “He’s not… That kid shouldn’t have to do…that. Jesus. Use his power to take someone apart? Selene said he has a hard time with hospitals and doc’s offices. What do you think it would do to him to disassemble someone that way?”

It still hurt Steve when he had to kill in the line of duty. Always had. He didn’t have to think very hard about what it would do to Ace, and he did not want the young man he knew to have to consider what Sam had suggested. What had happened to him and Bucky had happened during war time and had spiraled far out of control long before they’d gotten involved. When they had, it’d been with open eyes, even if they couldn’t see the whole picture. Now, though, it didn’t have to go that way.

“Remember how angry he was in the car the other day, Steve?” Sam asked softly. “Because he knows his Mom works hard, but won’t let him help? Betting he knows what she does, better than we do. Not sure I see her leaving him ignorant, either. Not with stakes like these.”

The stakes had risen significantly, now that they knew what Doctor Strange had told them. If the Sorcerer Supreme had it right, then Selene lived as a soldier as much as any of the Avengers. Which meant that she really couldn’t leave her son in ignorance and helpless in the face of the dangers likely to seek them out. Not and be the fighter they had begun to know, the mother they had gotten to know. She’d have prepared Ace. There’d have been no other acceptable choice.

“No. She’d have taught him,” he agreed reluctantly. “But she’ll have made sure he understands that it’s an absolute last resort. She won’t want him to do it, either.”

Metal slammed into the table top, cracking the surface. “That is _not_ happening!” Bucky half-shouted. “I don’t give a damn whether it’s just his idiot father being an asshole, or someone trying to use him to get to Selene, I’m not leaving them half-exposed! They can’t fight like we can! Tell me you two aren’t okay with just leaving it!”

That finally kicked his Captain America brain into gear. Steve leaned forward. “No _._ If Selene will let us, I’m not going to just let this lie. She didn’t mind us watching out for Ace, so I want to talk to her. We’ll need to talk to her and get the whole story straight from her. We’re working half-blind right now, and if they’re in that much danger—”

“We don’t know they are, guys,” Sam sighed. He didn’t look like he really wanted to say it, but continued anyway. “And they still haven’t actually asked for help. Technically, this still isn’t any of our business, and if Tony weren’t a nosy busybody magic-hater, we wouldn’t know anything more than we did this morning. So yeah, we need to talk to Selene, let her know what we heard today, but…guys, we have to let her make the call.”

They both stared at him as if he’d spoken a foreign language. Did he really expect them to just sit on their hands if Selene didn’t specifically ask for their help? Hadn’t he heard her about friends watching each other’s backs when she gave them the talismans?

“She isn’t exactly standing on a rooftop screaming for help,” the counselor added. “Look, I want to help them out as much as you two, but if she tells us to butt out and we don’t listen, there’s a chance we could really screw something up on her. If I understood Doctor Strange, and who the hell does, she basically does the same thing we do.”

He wrinkled his nose. “She just does it for an entire community we didn’t even know existed until something like last week. He also said she’s done this for over two decades. That’s ten times longer than me, and something like twice as long as you, Steve. How many times has a well-meaning civilian done something stupid that got one of us hurt?”

They exchanged a look. It had happened way too many times to count. The injuries mostly came from plucking the well-meaning civilian out of harm’s way before they got killed, and it was never pretty. They also didn’t really understand everything she might do, which made it that much more likely they’d make a mess of things if they blundered in without warning. Steve sank back into his seat.

“You’re right,” he answered, still feeling belligerent. “And we…still don’t actually know what’s going on. It might just be Hamilton being an asshole.”

“And roping coworkers into assholery?” Bucky growled. He still looked pale, and Steve wondered if it’d be a Nightmare Night, later.

“Guys, guys, hold up,” Sam broke in before it could become an argument. “We just need to talk to her. More information means we can plan better, right, Cap?”

He suppressed a frustrated sigh. “Right.”

Bucky definitely didn’t like that answer.

* * *

Try as they might over the next several days, the three of them couldn’t seem to get an hour together to sit down with Selene. They went on with unofficially body-guarding Ace, and one or another of them did their best to be around the brownstone during the day, but their schedules all included public appearances, team training and work at the Tower, and a generally chaotic whirl of Things To Do. They barely had time to check in with each other, never mind have a sit-down chat. It drove them all half-mad with concern, but they did what they could and tried to respect their landlady’s insistence that she didn’t need “heroing”, at least until they could speak with her and clear the air.

Almost a week after Doctor Strange’s visit to the Tower, they finally found themselves finishing up at the Tower at about the same time. They’d even managed it comparatively early. Sam had just joined Steve and Bucky in the elevator, on their way out for the day with the clock just kissing noon, when the “all hands on deck” alarm sounded from all their phones. Bucky bounced the back of his head off the wall of the elevator car as Steve sighed and asked FRIDAY to take them back up to the common floor.

“Aw, no, you have got to be shittin’ me,” the sniper groaned when they walked into the Mission Briefing Room. Rhodey, Tony, Bruce, Nat, and Clint looked like they’d just arrived, too, and Director Coulson stood beside a monitor on the wall. On the screen, the writhing tentacles of fifty-foot maybe-squids, if squids had eight…nine…ten eyes and black-drippy, horn-like protrusions on the end of each tentacle, made Westminster Bridge groan and shudder under their grip and climbed Big Ben the way King Kong had climbed the Empire State Building in the movies.

The British Army had moved a few units in, though they looked pretty damned thin on the ground, and truly spectacular flashes of lightning suggested that Thor had already mixed in. Nothing any of them did really seemed to affect the creatures, though. If the seething mass of tentacles breaking the surface of the Thames meant anything, the water held hundreds, if not thousands, of the damned things.

Wanda, Vision, and Pietro joined them as they watched a big section of the middle of the bridge crumble and drop into the water. The wildly disparate members of SHIELD stepped in just a minute or so later, and Agent May nodded at Coulson.

“We’re wheels up in ten, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. “These things fell out of the sky thirty minutes ago. British armed forces have responded, but they do not have the armament to deal with this. As you can see, everything they throw just bounces off. Doctor Foster is collecting as much data as she can and transmitting it to us as we speak. Stark, Banner, and Vision, your primary goal is to make sure our armament does _not_ bounce off.”

He transferred his gaze to his team. “The SHIELD team will coordinate with British forces to evacuate and shelter civilians. Captain, you’re to devise our battle strategy. Pertinent details being transmitted to you by the British Ministry of Defence as we speak. Our flight time’s about three hours with current weather conditions, so they’ll keep us updated as we go. That’s it, suit up!”

Bucky’s cell rang just as he picked it up to stuff it into a pouch on his belt. The screen flashed Selene’s face, a picture he’d taken at the barbecue, so he thumbed the green Answer Call button as he grabbed his go-bag and weapon case out of his locker.

“Hey, Selene,” he greeted her, slamming the door shut. “Sorry, now’s kind of a bad—”

“Bucky!” she broke in, all steel. “I just saw the news. The whole team’s going, right? Listen to me, they’re saying those things came out of the sky but that is not where they originated! They are terrestrial, and they are not natural.”

Sam, Clint, and Steve had paused when they heard him answer the phone. He blinked, frowned, and pulled the phone away from his head to tap the screen. “Okay, Selene, I just put you on speaker. I’ve got most of the – well, I’ve got the guys here with me. And Nat,” he added as the redhead poked her head around the end of the lockers. “Can you repeat that, and then go on?”

She repeated what she’d lead with, voice urgent, not a breath wasted. “I’ve encountered those bastards before, though not at that size. Someone must have disturbed a really ancient nest. They’re what happens when someone with less than half a clue’s been mucking around with things best left the hell alone.”

“On land,” she continued, sounding agitated but very clear, “all they’re interested in is feeding, which means as much meat as they can get, and they are a pain in the ass to take down. Now, this is really important. The ichor coming off the talons on the ends of their tentacles is caustic and really toxic. Do not get hit with that shit. Pure oxygen in a hyperbaric chamber will neutralize it, but you won’t have time for that. They’ll only be worse at that size. Thing is, they can be taken down.”

They exchanged a grim look as she paused for breath. “Their undersides are really soft, they have two hearts right dead-center that you have to get at the same time or they’ll just regenerate, and they are very vulnerable to fire once they’ve been on land for a couple of hours. It might take a little longer at this size, but they’ll go up like dry tinder if you can get them from the underside with something flammable.”

They could hear her rustling something on her end of the line. “The best way to eliminate those things is to hit them underneath with something penetrative and explosive.” She sounded strained on the last word, and something thumped in the background. “They’re individually about as intelligent as a ten year-old human child, but they’re hive-minded. The more minds in the collective, the more intelligent they are as a whole. They know their vulnerabilities and they try to protect them. Taking out three or four of their eyes will make them curl up to protect them. That’ll expose their undersides, and that’s when you have to get them.”

Now, an odd sort of crackling sound joined her voice on the line. “Remember, they heal, so you only have a small window, but it’s possible. Sometimes, if you get a group of them close enough together, one going up will set the others off. That happens fast and really damn hot, so make sure you can get clear. I’m talking to you, Steve.”

The blond coughed, cheeks pinking, and Bucky had to suppress a snicker as she went right on. “You’ll have to try to cut them off from a water escape. Their hive mind is intelligent enough to retreat once it’s lost enough of itself.”

“If it’s a hive, is there a Queen, or something?” Sam asked.

“Theoretically, though nothing I’ve ever seen or heard about them says anything for certain. There are some who maintain they have a single controlling entity, and others who suggest it’s just the sum of all the individual minds joined. If there’s a single controller, it’s never shown itself when a swarm surfaces.”

The crackling stopped. “I will say this: their appearance in northern waters is totally unprecedented, even given the size of the ones in London. Arggoths are equatorial, they prefer warm waters, so whatever put them there did it deliberately and probably maliciously. I have some documentation, diagrams and stuff, I’ll scan and send to you when we hang up, but that’s all I can offer. Except…come home safe, all of you. I’ll be Watching.”

The way she said that last suggested something a bit more significant than just the words, at least to Bucky. Briefly, he wondered what it actually meant, but then they boarded the quinjet, Steve’s Starkpad lit up with data from the Brits, and he had a whole lot more to worry about. Given the time difference and the long flight – shorter in a quinjet, but still way too long in an emergency like this – they’d touch down around eight in the evening, long after the sun had set.

That would complicate the whole scenario immensely, though perhaps not as badly as it might have back during the War. Selene did send the promised data, though, what looked like the scanned pages of some kind of book. They looked old, hand-drawn and -written, but they came through plenty clear. He zapped them to Steve so they could be shared out to the team’s devices.

That distribution proved crucial, because Bruce, Tony, and Vision, unaware of where the information had come from, used it to modify the weapons and ammo they handed out to the team once they landed at Northolt. Incendiary rounds for everyone, and instructions to use them only when they had a good shot at the creatures’ undersides. They could only modify so much ammo in-flight.

Clint and Bucky, and every sniper the British Army could muster, spearheaded their battle plan. Steve detailed everyone else to protect their snipers, who had to stay mobile because their targets developed the nasty tendency to locate and attack sniper nests. A cheer rippled through the defenders when the creatures began to go up in flames, lighting up the deepening night like enormous torches. The swarm of creatures didn’t seem to have an end, growing more violent as civilians evacuated the danger zones and they butted up against the perimeters set up by the military.

Thor and the British Army managed to corral the things between Charing Cross Road and the A4200, plus a narrow strip south along the river all the way to the Palace of Westminster, shortly before the sun went down. The creatures seemed to want to move northwest, anyway, but it meant they had to cover a damn lot of ground that encompassed a whole lot of important places, from the House of Commons and the Ministry of Defence to the Savoy, Covent Garden, and the Royal Opera House.

Still, that meant the area comprised mostly commercial space and had been easier to evacuate than a purely residential area would have. Once they’d gotten most of the things northwest of the Strand, they moved additional forces in behind them to cut them off from the Thames. After that, they got down to the messy business of wholesale squid-slaughter.

Steve and Bucky, naturally, fought as a single unit right in the thick of things. They spent most of their time within spitting distance of the Royal Opera House and Covent Garden Market, an area they’d spent quite a bit of their liberty time in back during the War. The area had changed drastically, though, and the damn squid weren’t making any improvements. Bucky’d settled himself on the roof of some kind of retail space, one of the few suitable roofs in the area, and started taking potshots at squid eyeballs.

Sam’s voice crackled over the comms. “Did you find a new place to set up, Soldier?” he asked. “I don’t see you.”

Bucky glanced around for Steve, found him crouched a short distance further along the roof. “How are you missing the Star Spangled Bullseye, Falcon? We’re on a roof about a hundred meters east of the last position.”

“East? You’re right in the middle of—yeah, I gotcha, now. Oh, shit! You’ve got one crawling up your eight o’clock! It’s—Christ, look out, Bucky!”

Bucky turned and immediately rolled, pulling his rifle tight to his chest. A black-taloned tentacle came down right where he’d lain, taking a sizzling chunk out of the tarpapered concrete with contact. He kept rolling as another talon descended, and then another, and he would run out of roof before the thing ran out of tentacles to swing at him.

He’d rolled away from Steve, hoped the big idiot had the sense to head the other way, as a rapid burst of gunfire from above heralded Sam’s arrival. Another tentacle came down, and then he had no more roof to roll along. He crouched in the corner, where the low, decorative ledge along the rim would give him a little protection, and tried to time the swings of the tentacles.

Suddenly, Steve crouched beside him, shield held up to shelter them from above. “You okay?” he asked, clipped and anxious.

“I’m good.” Bucky chanced a look over the side of the building. The street below seethed with tentacles. “Shit, we’re boxed in. Falcon, you got an exit for us?”

“Only if we take this bastard out, first!” Came the reply with another burst of gunfire. “Due east, next building over. You guys good for a bit of a—fuck!”

“Falcon?” they chorused, worried.

He took a moment to respond. “…what the hell?” It didn’t sound like he’d meant for his comm to pick that up. “Okay, that was weird. Thought for sure I was about to get slapped out of the sky and then the tentacle just…stopped. Like, rebounded.”

“The hell are you talking about?” Bucky asked, glancing over the side of the building again. The tentacles had started to inch up the wall.

“Never mind, figure it out later. Gotta get you guys outta there. Up for a jump?”

“Yeah, we’re good for—oh, hell.” Steve crowded Bucky even tighter, his free arm slipping around his back as he raised and braced the shield. The sniper got a glimpse of another tentacle coming in hard, talon-first, before a gloved hand shoved his head down. He waited for the metallic sound of the shield getting hit…but it never came. All the muscles tensed up beside him winced, paused, and then lightened up slightly as Steve lifted his head. “What the— Buck! The eyes!”

Bucky lifted his head, saw the clear space, and jerked the Skorpion off his right thigh, opening fire almost before it had cleared the holster. Four glistening black eyes caught a vicious spray of lead, shredding beneath the onslaught. Tentacles flailed as they lifted to protect the injured eyes, one skimming way too damn close to them…until, with a barely-perceptible ripple in the air around them, it seemed to bounce off something, ricocheting away. Even as he wondered about that, he lifted his rifle, flicking the switch for the incendiary, and pulled the trigger.

The squid-thing went up like a roman candle, flailing backwards to tumble off the roof into the tentacle-filled street below. With a hair-raising _whoosh_ , the squid in the street began to catch fire, too. As if they’d been spring-loaded, Steve and Bucky popped up out of their crouch and sprinted eastward, easily leaping the gap to the next building over. Sam dropped out of the sky like a rock, pulling up to land deftly just a few feet away.

“Damn, are you guys all right? That was way hairy,” he panted, eyes wide behind his flight goggles.

Bucky met Steve’s glance, nodding tightly. “Yeah, we’re good,” the Captain answered. “Buck, did you see that last tentacle? It—”

“Kinda bounced, yeah, I saw it.”

Sam blinked. “Bounced? You guys, too? That’s what the one…”

“What d’you think caused it?” Steve asked.

Sam and Bucky both shook their heads. The sniper looked around, orienting himself as he listened to the military chatter on his earpiece. “No idea. How much space have we got?”

The winged medic glanced across the rooftops to the river of fire they’d just touched off. “Not much. A whole lot of ‘em had just started up that street. Anything not on fire now will have to go somewhere else. I’ll go have a look. You guys good?”

Bucky glanced at Steve again, just to be sure, and then nodded. “Yeah. We’re good.”

Sam stepped away a little and soared back into the sky. Bucky holstered the Skorpion and checked the rifle over. Satisfied that it hadn’t taken any damage, he looked around to ensure their immediate area remained clear. “We ready?” he asked, and Steve nodded.

“Let’s get this done. I’m really tired of these things.”

Tony and Rhodey got knocked out of the sky twice each, Vision just once, and a tentacle blindsided Thor one time. The thing whipped him around, slapping him up against buildings twice before he managed to pull free. Pietro took quite a bit of shrapnel damage, though he simply moved too fast for the squids to touch him. He spent most of his time guarding Wanda and the Special Forces team they’d been assigned to protect. Wanda didn’t take much damage, the little she caught ending up mostly superficial, but the squids seemed oddly averse to getting anywhere near her.

Clint got flattened once, ignoring Nat’s warning just a breath too long for one more shot, and Nat took a nasty splash of the black talon-goop when she went in to pull his fat out of the fire. That sent Bruce, who had stayed back because of the locale and the need for at least one of the team’s science minds to stay available, into a frenzy of analysis to create an antidote to the squids’ toxin.

They lost nearly an entire platoon of British troops when a panicked shot set off a conflagration they couldn’t escape. The squid-things reversed direction near the end, managing to overrun a Special Forces squad and turn the soldiers into meals as they briefly broke the southern cordon to try to get back to the Thames. Dozens of unlucky individuals died all over the battlefield, crushed by tentacles or falling debris, bitten, poisoned, caught in sudden fires. Hundreds of injuries kept medical centers busy behind the lines.

Sam, Steve, and Bucky all took injuries, too – shrapnel from smashed buildings, bruises from hard landings, singes from getting too near a dying squid – but not a single, solitary tentacle or any other part of the creatures themselves so much as grazed them. Aware of the anomaly, they each noted more than a half-dozen instances of that odd ripple in the air around them as they avoided yet another close encounter.

It left them puzzled, but they had no time to discuss it. Not even hours later, when they and the rest of the team had been led to a barracks-like building they apparently had to themselves. The military attaché who escorted them also imparted the compliments – and the sanction – of the British government. By then, every single one of them wanted nothing more than to pass out for a few hours. They’d had a very long day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy wow, everyone, thank you! The response to this story over the last day or two has been amazing. Thank you so very much for all the kind words, for the views, and for the kudos! I was stunned and a little bit emotional over the amazing rec/review I tripped over yesterday. If you've just joined us as a result of that submission, welcome! As a very special thank you for the signal boost, kawherp, this extra chapter post is for you!


	11. Chapter 11

Selene had plans for the day, and for the next several days running. Long-neglected projects that needed work and writing deadlines loomed, not to mention taking care of a slightly sulky teenager and his friend, whose family problems seemed finally to have reached critical mass. She had things to do…but the moment she’d seen the video of the Arggoths swarming London, she’d known exactly what would happen and that she must have at least a small role in it.

She knew without questioning the knowledge that her new tenants – and friends – would be involved. So, except for chauffeuring Ace around, she’d canceled the rest of her plans for the day. She wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else, anyway.

Because Arggoths only came into full existence when some idiot with more power than sense started meddling with life-creating forces they probably didn’t understand fully, the things sort of straddled the line between natural beings and magical constructs. She had a few suspicions about such large, misplaced, otherwise-textbook Arggoths, though. This just seemed deliberate, especially with them falling out of the damn sky.

She called Bucky, because he seemed the most comfortable with her esoterica at this point, and filled them in as fully and quickly as she could. She had just enough time between hanging up with the team and leaving to pick Ace up from school to get the pages they’d need scanned and sent off.

Trying very hard to convince herself she’d done all she could for them, to remember that they’d trained as much as anyone could to deal with situations exactly like this, and not to worry about grown men who already carried as much protection as she could reasonably offer them, she collected her purse and the dogs and headed off to retrieve her son. She pulled up to the school only a few minutes later than usual.

Ace jumped in and promptly got his face washed by two very enthusiastic canines while she pulled back into traffic. He managed to get his seatbelt buckled while fending them off, but his good mood faded somewhat as they settled. “So…did you see the things in London?”

“I did.” Selene raised an eyebrow. “But how did you see them at school?”

“Missus Krautz caught it on Facebook while we took her stupid quiz. She told us we could use our phones after we’d finished.”

“Mmn. How’d you do on the quiz?”

“Felt pretty good. At least a B, I think. Are we not gonna talk about Arggoths in London? Did they call the Avengers out?”

She sighed. “Yes, and yes. I called and gave them as much as I have on the damn things. They’re as prepared as I can make them. I just hope Mister Stark doesn’t throw a tantrum about where they got the information and refuse to use it.”

He frowned at her. “I know he’s kind of a jackass, Mom, but I can’t see him putting his team in danger for something that petty.” His tone sounded faintly reproving.

“No, you’re right,” she agreed, then chuckled ruefully. “He’s probably not nearly as bad as I tend to think of him. I should ease up on him, and you’re right to have pointed it out. Thank you, son.”

He grinned, then frowned. “You’re welcome, but…they’ve got your little carvings, right?”

“I don’t know, honey. I left carrying them up to them, and I have no idea if they will, or if they’d remember to put them in their uniforms, or… I don’t know.”

The young man fell silent for a long moment. They’d gotten on the Brooklyn Bridge before he spoke again. “I don’t know whether to hope they’re carrying them, or hope they aren’t. If they aren’t, they could get hurt worse. If they are, you’ll feel it, won’t you?”

“Maybe. Over this distance, I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ve ever tested it from this far away. Dee and Luke were only in Colorado. That’s…maybe half the distance? If that.”

But even at that, she’d felt them die. The force they’d gone up against shattered her little tokens like so much brittle matchwood, overwhelmed her sister and brother-in-law, and tore the life from them before she’d done more than register a problem. She’d felt every microsecond of their deaths, and it had come so unexpected that it sent her into shock.

Ace had found her when he got home from school that afternoon, passed out and shivering on the floor of her office. To this day, she had no idea what attacked them. By the time she’d made it to Colorado to find out, something had gone through and wiped all traces from the entire area. Their deaths had been ruled a car accident, and she’d come home with little more than an insurance check and a conviction that she must find their killer.

“Mom?”

She blinked, surprised to find them already on the Manhattan side of the Bridge. “Sorry. Memories.” She shook her head. “I told Steve and Bucky when I talked to them that I’d be Watching, anyway. I’ll still come and get you when it’s time, but I’m going straight home and I’ll be busy until it’s time to leave again.”

“Watching?” he asked, surprised. “Why? You can’t do anything from here! You might as well find a TV broadcast or internet stream. It’d cost you a lot less.”

“I’m…not really sure,” she answered, surprised by that. “It just… Huh. I just said it. Perfectly natural, like it made all the sense in the world. But you’re right, it…really doesn’t.”

“Should I call in?”

“No. No, absolutely not. I will text you if anything changes, but there’s no reason for you to do anything differently, at least for now. I’d leave Dusk with you if I could, but that’s the only change I’d make.”

He jerked around in his seat to look at her. “Dusk? Jeeze, Mom, seriously? My necklace basically makes me a walking taser, and you want to leave one of the dogs with me, too?”

“I knew I should have gotten them into the Support Dog program.”

“Holy crap, Mom.”

She chuckled and reached out with one hand to pat his knee. “It’s my job, son. I’m supposed to worry about you, keep you safe, make sure you have everything you need, and at some point hopefully turn you into a functional human being capable of contributing positively to society. Not sure how I’m gonna do that last part, yet, but I’ve got the rest handled.”

“Gee, thanks,” he snorted. “I feel so loved.”

“You should.”

“Meaniehead.”

“Yes, son.” She snickered. “I know.”

They passed the remainder of the drive talking about school. Selene dropped him at Carnegie’s back door, watching until the door closed behind him and for a few minutes after. They hadn’t seen the group hanging around the ash can since the night Sam had stared them down, but she knew better than to think they’d given up. It just meant they’d found somewhere else to watch from. She had meant it about Dusk, but since that couldn’t really be an option, she would simply have to be extra-vigilant.

Covertly extra-vigilant, because Ace would sense anything she did and any Working past a certain size. As would anyone with Folk blood and a reasonable modicum of potential who happened by. She didn’t want to give random innocent strangers the heebie-jeebies, so she’d set Ward-points across the public entrances and connected them with only a thin line of power.

Set to monitor the traffic going into the building, they would notify her if anyone crossed with violent or malevolent intent. Here, she could do little else. She couldn’t even do that at the school, teenagers being excessively emotional creatures.

As she pulled out of the Carnegie lot, she forced herself to turn her thoughts to what she would do with the rest of her afternoon. She had no idea how quickly the Avengers could arrive in London to join the fight, but when they did, she felt sure she would know it.

If nothing else, Steve tended to get right up close and personal with his adversaries, and that meant he would come into physical contact with the Arggoths. Winter Soldier stood even odds of the same, mostly depending on the situations the Captain got himself into. If they’d found a way to engage the things from a distance, the Soldier would at least start out by sniping. He might not continue that way through the entire ordeal, though.

The very thought set her heart to pounding uncomfortably. They hadn’t known each other long – and she kept having to remind herself of that, because when they could be together, it felt as if they’d known each other forever – but she felt very close to them and already knew that she’d take any serious injuries to them far more personally than she really should. They knew what they were doing, she had to trust in that, but she’d also seen them in action on television just about every time they’d gone out. The news reports couldn’t show everything, of course, and didn’t let her hear what the Avengers heard and knew, but she’d seen enough.

Every time, Captain America went out balls-to-the-wall-focused on his objective, and the Winter Soldier always followed in a desperate effort to keep him alive and relatively unharmed. The Falcon usually had them covered, though. She worried about him less, in part because he had a better sense of vulnerability than the two super-soldiers. He would also be airborne for the fighting, and she knew that he had more than enough skill to stay clear of the tentacles. Steve and Bucky could…they just wouldn’t.

With that thought, she knew she would both Watch and watch the proceedings in London, even if it didn’t make any sense and she couldn’t do anything for them beyond what she already had. When she got home, she collected a can of diet soda from the refrigerator and her knitting basket, then headed straight into her office. Surely someone must be broadcasting the goings-on.

She found multiple news streams and arranged them all in separate windows across three monitors. Most, she muted, but she left the sound on low from the one feed where the commentator seemed to have a decent grasp of the general situation. The video feeds showed an additional danger she hadn’t considered: the sun had begun to set in London, and they would soon be fighting in full dark. That idea pleased her not at all.

Something like two hours passed while she watched and listened, knitting steadily. When the illuminated red-and-gold streak of the Iron Man suit flashed through the lights of the news camera, the commentator lost his damn mind for a few moments. Selene lowered her needlework into her lap and closed her eyes.

It didn’t take very long to find the three thin-stretched threads that connected her to the totems she’d given the guys, but it definitely took some real effort to follow them all the way to their ends. The Arggoths caused heavy interference, and she realized fairly quickly that more Folk than she had chosen to Watch the mess in London, each with their own methods and reasons. Those extra Presences meant she had to take care not to expose herself too much.

Europe lay so far outside her territory, she had no idea which to be wary of, and which to consider benign. They would, understandably, feel the same about her. Better and safer to keep her head down.

The first Arggoth to go up in flames set the newscaster off again, and she let a smile curl her lips as she opened her eyes to watch. She had a firm hold of her connections, now, and could feel them vaguely. The esoteric presence of the Arggoths made an annoying background buzz that she struggled to ignore for a while. Then one of them brushed against Steve’s protections, just the barest touch, and her heart gave an uncomfortable thump. The guys had taken the field.

Initially, the cameras stayed trained on Iron Man, War Machine, and Thor, probably the three easiest to see in the nearly-dark sky. In fairly short order, though, someone had gotten enough spotlights and other light sources concentrated on the general area of combat that the cameras began to pick out Falcon and Vision as they soared above the waving tentacles.

Then one of the feeds she’d been watching burst into a flurry of motion, and when it settled a few minutes later, it focused and zoomed in on Captain America and Winter Soldier standing on a rooftop with Black Widow and Hawkeye. They seemed to confer for a moment, and then the Captain waved one hand. Black Widow and Hawkeye took off in that direction at a run, and with a jerk of his head, Cap led the Soldier off in entirely the opposite direction. The camera zoomed out to follow them.

For a time, they moved from building to building along the rooftops, sending up great gouts of Arggoth-fueled flame every time they stopped. Eventually they moved out of the camera’s range, and none of her other feeds had picked up on them yet. She waited with bated breath, knitting forgotten, for them to come back into view somewhere.

Perhaps a half hour later, they still hadn’t turned up again, but a series of grazes against Bucky’s ward sent goosebumps rising along her arms. Much to her surprise, the first serious jolt against her protections came from Sam a minute later, and it rattled her a little. It felt like a really solid strike, and she couldn’t say whether the little talisman had enough strength to fully block a direct hit. She hadn’t intended them to deal with physical attacks. She scoured the feeds for the slightest glimpse of Falcon…and found nothing.

A pause, though she felt relieved by the sense that all three totems continued moving, and then Steve’s ward shrilled alarm along her every nerve. Bucky’s reacted again just a moment later, and a spectacular column of flame erupted from a rooftop in the distance on her main feed. The talismans signaled more movement as what looked like an entire street caught fire where that first flare had gone up. She’d started scouring the feeds for a better view when a flash of rage caught her attention. It felt somewhat familiar, if distantly so, and she paused in her search to close her eyes and focus on it.

Something – no, someone – with the power to do so had scried the events in London much as she and a number of others had, but the success of the defenders and all the flames seemed to upset this particular Watcher. Enough, apparently, that they neglected to keep their reaction under control. She’d have just noted the sense of their Presence and moved away, except that it teased at the back of her mind. Careful to keep herself concealed, she drew closer.

Ultimately, the patchwork nature of the Watcher’s power gave her the clue she needed. What she’d sensed felt cobbled together – knit or woven by a single hand from multiple sources, and they hadn’t succeeded in completely assimilating the power before they’d stuck it together to use it. She’d sensed this specific power before, in the traces left on her Wards at home, and the tiny brush against Ace’s necklace the same night.

Their magical stalker had chosen to try to Watch the Avengers, her new tenants and some of the closest friends she’d had in years, fight a strange Arggoth infestation in London. The Arggoths’ losses seemed to upset them more and more as it went on. Had they merely chosen to root for the attackers, or had they had something to do with the infestation to begin with? Why?

If they’d had the kind of power necessary to influence an Arggoth hive of this size a week ago, why had they only brushed against Ace and left filthy smears all over her Wards? That level of power should have been able to do at least some damage to her protections. Were they dealing with a rank amateur who happened to have access to a lot of power, or a manipulative expert playing a long game she hadn’t yet even seen the edges of?

The three Avengers living in her building had definitely gotten in the way of just about every attempt to take Ace, barring the first bungled kidnapping. Had their adversary raised the Arggoths, sacrificing people and property in London, to draw the Avengers away and keep them busy?

The thought nearly sent her out to the car to collect Ace from Carnegie and bring him home where she could fortify the place against the world. Except she couldn’t do that to him, any more than she could do that to herself. They had to live in the world, regardless of the threats it might throw at them.

Besides, she’d sensed their stalker Watching over London, could sense them even as she considered all the implications she could see. They could not Watch and react so keenly while also arranging to kidnap even a single kid from so populated a place as the Hall. She supposed they might barely manage it if they’d arranged it with thugs like the first pair before turning their attention to Europe, but…

…her gut said the threat to Ace hadn’t grown, yet, and that the threat to her friends remained much larger and more immediate. She settled a little, split her attention between her three totems and the unsavory presence at their periphery, and went on Watching.

Over the next several hours, her tenants moved in and out of camera range over and over, leaving quickly-ashing Arggoths in their wake. Thor took out wave upon wave of the damned things, and Iron Man found a way to spark a wider spread of them into roaring fire all by himself. War Machine quickly picked up on his method.

She caught faint glimpses of Black Widow and Hawkeye, and then the Scarlet Witch’s power flared red and raw as what looked like a full block of the invaders burst into flame. Selene assumed Pietro had joined the fight beside his sister, but she never saw him. Not that she’d expected to. Even high-tech news cameras couldn’t keep up with him.

The Vision hovered above the Witch’s position, apparently keeping watch over her area from above. British Army units, clearly apprised of how to beat the behemoths that had invaded their capital, moved around in tanks and faster armored vehicles. They did at least as much damage as the superheroes among them.

She received more alarms from the totems, a combination of tingling grazes and the heavy thumps of direct hits. Eight more came from Sam, ten from Bucky, and a whopping fifteen from Steve. Not that she’d kept score. She just couldn’t help but count them and hope that every one of them had protected its bearer from serious harm. Over and over, they kept moving, and she tried to convince herself that meant they all remained okay.

Five hours after she’d sat down, only a handful of Arggoths remained and she had to go retrieve Ace. She felt tense and more than a little frazzled. The dogs picked up on her mood, following her silently to the car and jumping in to settle in the back seat without their usual ecstatic prancing.

Her son caught on immediately, eyeing her with concern as they pulled into the street again.

“Are they okay, Mom?” he asked, his voice soft.

“I think so.” She took a breath, letting it out slowly. “It…they’ve fought for a long time, but I think they’re all okay, so far.”

“Did the totems work?”

For some reason, the question brought a fierce smile to her lips. “Yes, son. They did. The whole fight.”

Ace’s answering grin looked a little fierce, too. “Good.”

* * *

They settled Gen into her very first apartment that weekend, after three days of searching finally yielded something she could afford on her waitressing tips and the small trust her paternal grandparents had left her. It lay close enough to school that she could get a bus, and seemed in reasonably good repair. Selene liked it because the area Felt good, but she still put a small Warding on just the one apartment, to keep ill intent and violent tendencies away.

She may have been projecting, but she didn’t trust the young woman’s stepfather as far as she could throw him. Her mother seemed nice enough, if a touch oblivious, but Selene had gotten used to thinking of Geneane as hers, too. She did as much as she felt she could without overstepping, and then ordered celebratory takeout that they ate at Gen’s battered, secondhand kitchen table.

On the way home that night, Ace drowsed in the seat beside her when she felt the prickling rise of power aimed right at her. Or maybe her son. Difficult to know, in such close proximity.

Immediately, she pulled into a parking lot, braking to a stop in the middle of the aisle without bothering to look for a spot. The lot itself had mostly emptied, anyway. Ace roused almost instantly, looking around in confusion. “Mom?”

“Do you feel it?” she asked tightly, concentrating. In moments, she’d identified it by its peculiar, patchwork structure once more.

He stilled. “…wow. Yeah. Is that the—”

“Yes.”

“What are they doing?”

“I’m not sure yet. Just pay attention.”

“Okay.”

The sensation swelled for a long, agonizing moment while she prepared to respond…and then just dissipated into nothing. Absolutely nothing, as if it had never happened. They blinked at each other, waiting another few minutes just in case. Nothing. They made it home again without sensing anything odd for the rest of the drive, and everything at the brownstone remained exactly as they had left it.

It happened again the next day, as they moved around the market. The piebald power crept up on them, seeming almost to darken the fluorescent lights in their fixtures as they moved unobtrusively into a protected corner between the meat and dairy cases. For five minutes, they pretended to discuss their shopping list, waiting and preparing for the power to do something…and then it disappeared, gone between one breath and the next. Just cut off. They exchanged a perplexed look, waited a little, and then headed to the checkout.

The next day, it happened as Selene dropped Ace at school, and again when she dropped him at Carnegie. The fourth day, they Felt it three times, including once at lunch while Ace ate at school. He texted her:

**Are you feeling this?**

She replied absently as she tried to analyze why it felt a little different, this time. It had interrupted her working at her loom, and they had already thoroughly annoyed her.

**Get somewhere safe,**

**make sure of defenses.**

**I’m probably going to**

**piss them off in a minute.**

The difference seemed to come down to the fact that the power’s focus had split, this time. A considerable distance stood between her and Ace, and while that probably seemed like a good time to loom threateningly, she hadn’t raised her son to be a helpless puppy and she had most definitely had enough of the bullshit without responding. This time, she gathered power and threw it back, focused and hard. It should come through as a stinging slap against whatever protections they had going.

It connected solidly, and she braced herself as more focus swung to her. The power flinched back, clearly surprised, and then grew again as the threat-sense took on a hint of anger much like what she’d sensed in London.

“Come on, asshole,” she murmured to herself. “I told you how I feel. What’re you gonna do about it?”

But the power dissipated once more without doing anything at all. She waited, expectant, in vain. A moment later, her phone sang again.

**It’s gone. Are you okay?**

She sighed and answered, then took up her shuttle again.

**I’m fine. I’ll see you at 2:30.**

**< 3 <3 <3**

By day five, she wanted nothing more than to completely ignore the power that rose to loom over them four times in a single day. Unfortunately, she couldn’t, because that might very well be exactly what they waited for. If they raised power and she didn’t react, she might be caught unprepared when they finally did something with all the looming. She couldn’t risk it, not with Ace in the crosshairs.

She gritted her teeth and responded every single time. Ace did, too, because anything he could take care of himself meant energy she didn’t have to expend. Irritated and more than a little snarly, she finally stalked downstairs to her magic workroom in the evening after she’d brought her son home.

He followed her down the stairs. “What’re you gonna do, Mom?” The question sounded more than a little worried.

Cupboard doors banged and clattered as she pulled maps out and tossed them onto the bench. The young man darted around her to turn the light on over the workspace. “I am going to find this asshole, then I’m going to find out everything I can about them, and then, I am going to feed them a very large piece of my mind,” she growled. “This playing with power and showing off to each other is very distracting, and I have things—”

He turned to eye her with concern when she broke off. “Mom?”

She blinked at him. “Distracting. I thought they meant it just to threaten us, maybe make us skittish and prone to mistakes because of fatigue. But…what if that’s secondary? What if they’re doing this to distract me from something?”

“Um. If they want me, they’re going at it way backwards. All they’ve done so far is make you focus on me even more.”

“Exactly!” She muttered as she dug through one more cupboard and then a box from one of its shelves. “They’ve got me focusing inward! And it doesn’t make sense, if they just want to take you. If that’s what they wanted, the strategy should be entirely different. So why else would they be keeping me watching over you?”

He frowned. “But what could they have going that they don’t want you to see badly enough to give up on getting hold of me? I thought—”

She finally found what she wanted and headed back to the bench. “I know. I did, too.” Her eyes widened as another thought occurred. “But we have absolutely no proof that the person or people raising that patchwork-quilt power are the same ones who have been trying to snatch you. It might be someone else entirely! Damn, I should have thought of that!”

That she hadn’t only told her how well the gambit may have worked. “The asshat I’ve swatted at least twice might just be using the threatening-and-intimidation gambit to keep me from looking too hard at whatever else might be going on around here. And we already know there’s at least one thing, because we still don’t know anything about what’s going on where the Porcupine Monsters came from, or who’s running that. This week could have been them, or it might even be someone else entirely. Dammit, I’d focused on it so hard, I didn’t keep looking.”

“Here,” she continued, and handed him a map of North America. “Pin that to the corkboard, please?”

When the sheet was up and he’d retreated to safety behind her, she closed her eyes and focused hard on the piebald, cobbled-together power she’d fenced with all week. Holding it firmly in mind, she lifted her hand and sent a Seeking command to the inch-long stone dart that lay on her open palm. It twitched, shifted, and then shot across the intervening space to stab into the map. Ace went to look as soon as she lowered her hand and opened her eyes.

“It’s here. Local. In the City,” he reported.

“Okay.” She picked out a map of the Five Boroughs next, handing it over for him to hang while she rolled the first one back up. When he got clear, she repeated the process, scowling when the dart embedded itself in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. On a hunch, she skipped the next level in and went straight for the ‘kill’. This time, she lifted thirteen of the little darts on her palm.

“Oh, shit,” Ace breathed.

Selene opened her eyes, and her heart sank. The darts had outlined a large portion of the Lower East side, out into the water of the East River a little ways. One, however, stuck out from exactly the same place the monster-tooth had stuck weeks ago. The monster-makers had enlarged their territory. Suddenly, all the clues fell together and she understood why the power seemed so poorly-melded.

They were dealing with a Collective.

Fuck.


	12. Chapter 12

Three long days of assisting with the cleanup passed before Sam, Steve, and Bucky got on a quinjet to fly home. They also spent two days in seemingly endless meetings about where the things had come from and how and why, and another two days of what amounted to little more than publicity appearances before they secured a ride across the Atlantic. Wanda, Pietro, Clint, and Nat flew with them.

Rhodey had flown back earlier on Pentagon business, but Tony stayed behind with Bruce, Vision, and Thor to take part in the ongoing discussions about where the squid-things had come from. So far, it didn’t seem that anyone had compared notes about where the information on the things had originated. If none of the scientists involved had seen fit to ask, no one who knew the pages’ source felt any need to tell them.

On balance, Sam found himself glad of that, too. Things had gotten heated once or twice during the meetings he’d sat in on, and he’d worried that if their source became a pertinent object of inquiry, someone might have suggested hauling Selene out to testify. Nobody needed that kind of bullshit in their life, least of all their Brooklyn landlady. Especially since he still didn’t think she’d much want to testify about magic in front of an international committee.

She’d been open with them, but she considered them her friends. He decided he’d have been extremely reluctant to put her name in the record and knew without even needing to ask that Steve and Bucky would feel the same about it. He didn’t know for sure about the others of the team who knew, though. Just as well it hadn’t become an issue.

A little surprised all over again by how protective they’d all become of each other, and how quickly, he huffed a quiet chuckle and leaned back in his seat. Stretching his legs out in front of him let him feel the burn of lingering scrapes and bruises. He suppressed a groan.

Bucky lay sprawled along the bench across the aisle, eyes closed and head in Steve’s lap. The big blond absently ran his fingers through the brunet’s hair, frowning at the deck under their feet. Watching the motion, and how very relaxed the sniper appeared, had a soothing effect. Sam found his eyelids growing heavy.

Suddenly, Steve twitched and then stiffened, hands going still. Bucky frowned faintly, grumbling, but their Captain murmured something and dug in his pocket. Sam roused himself, curious. Steve pulled his hand out and held something up between his fingers. The little white wolf Selene had given him sat there, seeming almost to glow in the odd light of the quinjet. Now, Bucky’s eyes had opened, and he frowned up at his boyfriend in puzzlement.

“The reason those things couldn’t touch us,” Steve explained, his expression a bizarre mix of smug and awed. “Whatever Selene did to these protected us from them. She said they’re unnatural, right? The squid-things. Arggoths? And she knew about them, had the information, so ‘unnatural’ has to mean some kind of magic. Enough so that it triggered these to react, anyway. It’s the only thing the three of us had that no one else did.”

Bucky swung himself upright in the seat beside him. “She did say it’d give a sting to anyone trying to touch us, but I thought that just meant magically.”

“Those things definitely reached out to touch,” Sam said, frowning as he tried to recall the conversation. Something about it bothered him, but it took a moment for him to put it together. When he did, his eyes widened. “Have either of you talked to her since we finished that fight? Because I remember her saying these things’d let her know when someone tried to touch, and if they protected us against the squid, her sense of them must’ve lit up like a damn Christmas tree.”

Both super-soldiers’ eyes widened in horror. “Jesus…” Bucky mumbled, already scrabbling for his phone. He tapped at the screen several times, then put it up to his ear and asked, “What time is it in New York right now? Where are we, anyway? What the hell time is it here?”

Sam shook his head and pulled his phone, checking the times. “Crap. Hang up. It’s four in the morning over there. Better wait ‘til we la—no, wait, it’ll only be six, then. Do we even know when she usually gets up?”

“Ace heads out the door at about six if we’re taking him, five thirty if he’s gonna take the Q,” Steve reminded them as the sniper ended the call. “Betting Selene’s been going with him, but…does she have a car?”

She'd said she'd "take Ace", but they hadn't asked how and she hadn't said. They stared at each other, at a loss. None of them had any idea.

  


 

A quick question to FRIDAY confirmed that Selene did, in fact, own a car that she probably used to take Ace to school and Carnegie. The AI couldn’t answer that unknown for them, but it seemed likely. Less exposure to the public meant less risk from hidden watchers. They got caught up in debriefing with Director Coulson as soon as they entered the Tower, though, and in filing the after-action reports they’d all pecked at on the flight in anticipation of their necessity.

“Are we finally done?” Bucky asked a little plaintively as he and Steve walked out of the debriefing room after nearly everyone else had gone. Coulson remained in the room behind them, still in conference with Tony and Thor via a secure line.

“I really hope so,” Steve answered. He’d wanted to tear out of the Tower, headed for Brooklyn, from the moment they’d landed. Getting stuck in all the official responsibilities had chafed badly, but not quite enough to let him skip out on them. He knew how important fresh information could be. Now, though, they’d finished, and could go home.

Of course, nothing could be so simple for them. Sam waited at the elevator doors, expression tense. “I think we should borrow a meeting room, guys,” he called out reluctantly. “FRIDAY has some news for us.”

Steve suppressed a groan – Bucky didn’t bother – and looked around. They’d just passed a small conference room, the last and smallest on the floor. He backtracked, sinking into a seat at the six-person table inside. Sniper and counselor followed, closing the door before settling into seats.

“Okay, FRIDAY,” Sam sighed. “Hit us with what you’ve got.”

“Regarding the inquiry into the firehouse in the Lower East Side, I have at last discovered its origin and history,” the AI began immediately. “For the most part, it is entirely mundane, but the point at which it becomes of interest to us occurred in the late Nineteen-Eighties, when the building underwent significant renovations.”

Holographic pictures flashed above the tabletop, showing the location under construction. “Ostensibly to update the infrastructure beneath the building, the work required divers in the East River, as well as the usual construction crews. The job offering earned a rating so difficult that only one construction company in the city possessed the necessary certifications at the time. Construction went on three times longer than the initial estimate but appears to have completed only slightly over-budget in spite of the delay in completion.”

“Wait a minute, FRIDAY,” Steve interrupted, frowning. “This is part of the Porcupine Monster investigation. That’s a team assignment. Why aren’t we having a full briefing, here?”

“The connections I have discovered lead me to believe it best to brief you first, Captain. Once you have heard what I have discovered, you may have additional questions, and possibly orders, which will not involve the full team.”

He blinked, staring at first Bucky, and then Sam. His boyfriend met his gaze with a suspicious scowl, the medic with tense blankness. They didn’t like the implications any better than he did. Only one thing could have prompted the AI to say something like that, and with a sinking feeling, he tried to withhold both his suspicion and any judgment. He frowned and nodded. “Okay. Continue.”

The computer didn’t leave them to stew in anticipation for long. “The Public Works committee tasked with organizing renovations on the tract of land which included the firehouse comprised a number of people we now know as Hydra operatives. Additionally, two of the five Fire Chiefs who have served at that location have been recently identified as Hydra. Beyond the personnel connection, I have not identified any of the earmarks which would suggest the firehouse conceals a Hydra base. I could find no reports of unusual or suspicious activity. It does appear that there is some connection, however.”

The three exchanged grim looks. They thought they’d driven Hydra out of New York, at least. This news was not welcome. FRIDAY hadn’t finished, though. “The construction company that completed the renovations on the firehouse still exists, and is called Inland Empire Construction. They are a subsidiary of Dominion Real Estate Development, which is itself part of the Imperial Industries conglomerate. Also a part of that conglomerate is Dominion Distribution, which owns Empire Novelty Import Company.”

Bucky blinked, jaw dropping open in shock. “Empire…”

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes. The company which currently employs Rick Hamilton.”

The pieces started falling together with what felt like audible _clunks_ as Steve put that last tidbit into the pile. He scowled blankly at the table top as he made the connections. The Porcupine Monsters appear, and Selene gets whatever it is that tells her that she’ll be needed. So she stays when the rest of the area is evacuated, and winds up right where he needed her when the queen monster exploded.

Not even a week later, someone involved in organized crime received a visit from some “rich jackass”, and orders go out to two thugs to watch and eventually try to kidnap Ace. When that failed, Hamilton showed up out of the clear blue sky after a ten-year absence, bleating about wanting to see his son. The watching continued when he also failed. Bruce and Tony get data from their calculations that point to the LES as the likely origin for the monsters, and Selene gets the same from…whatever it is she taps into with her magic.

Every single string leads to the firehouse in the LES, and from there, back to Hydra. Which should no longer exist in New York.

That’s when the connection cut, though. “Wait…back up a minute. You said it doesn’t look like a Hydra base, except for the personnel that’ve been related to it?” He glanced up at the ceiling, frowning. “Anyone in the recent past? The last…I don’t know, ten years or so?”

“No, Captain. The last Hydra-related Fire Chief transferred out with no destination specified fifteen years ago. The one before that died in an automobile accident ten years before. I can find no indication that Hydra is currently active at that site.”

“What about in all these Empire-Imperial-Dominion companies?” Bucky gruffed. He wore a tense scowl, too, his mouth set in a tight line. Both his hands lay on the table, closed into fists. “Anyone suspicious there? Known operatives? What about activity?”

“I have discovered nothing of note, Sergeant Barnes, though they are a large and diverse conglomerate in existence since Nineteen-Sixty-Three. There is a great deal of data to mine, and their security is excellent. Some of the subsidiary companies have their own security measures, in addition to the corporate layers. I’m afraid it will take some time to unearth what we require, assuming it is there to find.”

“Which it may not be.” Sam eyed them both grimly, shoulders tense. “Hydra might not be involved at all. It might be someone else entirely, moved into a maybe-Hydra installation after we ran the Nazis out of town. Selene said she’d only noticed it recently.” His expression said he didn’t believe it for a moment.

Neither did Bucky, whose gaze swung from Sam to Steve. “We can’t count on that. Selene and Ace can’t count on that. Hydra or not, they’re still makin’ monsters. Just a different kind, now.” He tapped two metal fingers on the table top for emphasis. “If it ain’t Hydra, great, they still need cleaning out. If it’s Hydra, remember what Doc Strange said. They’re damn good at what he suggested could happen to someone like Selene. I’m not lettin’ that shit happen to her or Ace.”

“God, no.” The thought squeezed the air from Steve’s lungs. “No, we’ve got to warn them, and talk to her about what Doctor Strange said. All of it. And Sam, I’m sorry, but I think we’ve just been pushed past being able to let her make this call. Even on the chance it’s Hydra, we can’t stay out of it, now.”

“No way, man,” the medic agreed. “Their problems just got all tangled up in our investigation, and Selene’s, too. We do have to remember she’s not helpless, though. I think it just became crucial that we work with her on this. And find out if Ace is capable of what we talked about. They might wind up having to watch our backs as much as we’ll have to watch theirs.”

Steve didn’t like that idea very much, but the strategist in him couldn’t deny the possibility. Whoever they went up against, Selene had already said they’d tried to play her game, using her kind of power and skill. That meant that most of the team had almost no exposure to the possibilities. Steve, Bucky, and Sam only knew what they did because of Selene, after all.

Wanda might be better equipped for this fight than them, but that didn’t mean they would even consider sitting it out. They could handle the physical threats, but it became increasingly likely that Wanda would have to team up with Selene and Ace to deal with the magic…aspects. Jesus, they needed more information, and they needed it immediately.

“Right.” He flattened his hands on the table and pushed to his feet. “FRIDAY, put what you just told us, plus whatever pictures, videos, and other data you’ve come up with into a briefing and get it out to the whole team, us included. Let them all know we’ve gone to get as much more information as we can, and that we’re likely to have to work with the Thomases on this investigation. I don’t care how Tony feels about that, either. He can sit it out if it bothers him too much, but their assistance is non-negotiable. We’ll call in Doctor Strange, if we have to.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“We should talk to the two that attacked Ace, again,” Bucky said as he got to his feet. “And see if we can’t track Rick Hamilton down for a discussion, too. Bet he’s got lots to tell us.”

“You think he would?” Sam asked as they headed for the elevators.

The sniper snorted derisively, and Steve huffed a humorless chuckle. “Doubt it. We’ll just have to make sure he understands we’re scarier than his bosses. FRIDAY, can you arrange interviews with Jenkins and his partner, and start a search for Hamilton?”

“I shall begin immediately, Captain.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

 

  


Bucky sighed in relief as they turned the last corner and the brownstone came into view. Everything looked normal, perfectly safe. He knew that didn’t necessarily mean very much, given what they’d just learned, but coming in sight of the place lent him a measure of calm he hadn’t felt since they’d walked into the briefing room a week ago.

They’d arrived in the middle of the afternoon, parking their bikes in the alley beside Sam’s car. The little blue sedan that usually sat at the end of the alleyway had disappeared. That had to be Selene’s car, now that he thought about it. She should have picked Ace up already, and they’d probably gotten halfway to Carnegie by now. It meant they would have time to dump the contents of their go-bags into the washer and change clothes, at least.

They all sat in the garden, reviewing what FRIDAY had sent them, when Dusk and Sable charged out into the yard an hour later. The dogs nearly bowled Steve over in their enthusiasm to greet him, and Bucky took that as his cue to get up before they turned their exuberance on him. It meant that he only got leaned on, and his hands licked, rather than the full face-wash Sam and his boyfriend got.

It also meant that he stood upright and prepared when Selene stepped out the door and burst into an unfettered grin before all but throwing herself into his arms. “Bucky! Steve! Sam!” she crowed, squeezing him tightly around the middle. He barely managed to return the hug, and then she pulled away to give Steve the same treatment almost before he’d gotten to his feet. “I’m so glad you’re all okay! You are okay, right? Nobody got seriously hurt?”

She hugged Sam and stepped back to survey them all with an embarrassed flush coloring her cheeks. “Sorry…I just… This has been the week from hell, and I worried about you guys. Everyone’s okay?”

Sam grinned at her. “Yeah, we all got a little banged up, but nobody got too badly hurt. Except Clint, because he’s always getting hurt, and Nat because she pulled his fat outta the fire. Docs at the Tower say they’ll be fine in another couple of days, though.”

“What about you?” Steve asked anxiously. “It didn’t even occur to us until we got on the flight back that you’d probably…um… Sensed? The fight.”

She smiled up at him, and Bucky thought she looked worn. Tired, somehow, though she certainly seemed energetic enough. “And what do you mean, the week from hell?” he added as they all settled in the grass. “Somethin’ happen?”

“Not…exactly. Or, at least, nothing active.” Grimacing, she picked at the grass as she explained how she’d watched the battle in London and sensed Watchers other than herself while they’d fought.

“Jesus…” Sam breathed, wide-eyed. “Wait, sorry, but… You could see what was happening in London from here?”

She chuckled. “No, not exactly. You three carried the little figurines I gave you, though – and I’m glad you did, guys, thank you – and they gave me…hm, a sort of anchor to follow. I couldn’t really see anything so much as just sense it. I Felt it every time one of you would have gotten hit by an Arggoth, for instance, but I didn’t know how or why you got that close. Although I’m sort of impressed you didn’t burn your poor little totem out, Steve. Do you rely on your shield so much that you never bother just getting out of the way?”

Steve went pink to the tips of his ears, and Bucky couldn’t suppress a snicker. “He does. More in London this time than usual, though. Mostly because the shield didn’t really impress the squid, much.”

“Anyway, I felt it, and the energies around you,” Selene continued, giggling at the glare Steve leveled on his other half. “But I couldn’t actually see anything. In the dark, from the designated safe zones, not even the internet news streams could give me very much in the way of a view. I knew none of you had actually died, but I had no way to know you hadn’t taken serious injury until a few days later, when they started trotting you guys out to greet your adoring fans.”

“What about the rest of the week?” Steve asked gently.

“That’s…both a little more and a little less complicated.” She took a breath and launched into a description of her observations of the energies around the battle in London, and went on with the week in New York that had the three Avengers exchanging grim expressions again. She scowled at the grass and toyed with the loose tuft of hair at the end of her braid by the time she finished.

“What I can’t figure is why the group that got angry over the fight in London is also spending so much energy just Watching Ace and me. They’re definitely the ones who created the Porcupine Monsters. They’re expanding their territory around that fire station, but I’m not sure they’re related to whoever tried to snatch Ace. I can’t tell if I’ve got two different sets of people to deal with, or just the one.”

“Actually, we can help with that,” Bucky told her. He threw a glance at Steve, who nodded and began explaining what they’d learned that morning. The steel returned to her gaze and expression before he’d finished, as if she knew where the story would go. When it got there, she pressed one hand over her eyes.

“That… That idiot,” she murmured. “That unmitigated moron! I wonder if they’ve got something on him, or if he’s just trying to impress the big dogs like the yapping Chihuahua he’s always been.”

“You don’t seem too surprised,” Bucky noted. “Would he really offer up his kid to save his own skin?”

“Oh, in a heartbeat, especially if it meant showing me up.” Selene nodded. “Ace isn’t his except biologically. Rick hasn’t had anything to do with him in any way that really matters. Not in…probably twelve years? Something like that. He managed to make phone calls for a year or two, but didn’t much bother coming around.”

The sniper exchanged a look with his boyfriend, shaking his head in disbelief. Steve looked horrified and angry.

Sam sighed. “Sadly, that’s not even all that rare,” he commented. “Makes him a real piece of work, but it happens way more often than I’d like to admit. That’s only part of the reason we needed to talk to you, today, though. A…oh, wow, it’s already been almost two weeks? Damn. Nothin’ like tentacle monsters in London to completely screw up your sense of time.”

That made both super-soldiers laugh wryly. The counselor had no idea what those words meant. His eyes widened, then narrowed at both of them. “Yeah, yeah, okay, poor choice of words. You could help me out, here.”

“But you’re doing so well.” Bucky smirked at him. “Why mess with perfection?”

Steve snickered. Sam rolled his eyes. “Ha. Ha. So, Selene, what these two assholes are trying so hard not to help me tell you is that a couple weeks ago, Tony had Doctor Strange stop by the Tower. Pretty sure he’d asked him by to grill him about what you did when you visited, but we walked in on the tail end of it.”

He went on to describe the Doctor’s visit, apparently encouraged by the amusement he could see in her eyes. To their collective relief, she didn’t seem bothered by the conversation or anything else about that day. She even seemed to find Strange’s weird reaction to the totems somewhat hilarious. Steve, and then Bucky, joined in toward the end of the explanation to add their own view on what they’d heard that day.

“So that’s where we are,” the sniper finished. “I think it’s pretty safe to say that whoever it is that’s been picking at you and Ace is the same as whoever let the Porcupine Monsters out, and based on what you just told us, it’s a group. Seems like they’ve got a headquarters, or at least a base of some kind, in that firehouse in the Lower East Side.”

The blond nodded. “Hamilton works for them, so they probably know all about you and Ace, and it seems pretty damn likely they want the two of you as badly as they want to do…whatever it is those monsters were a part of. We think you’re in the crosshairs, Selene.”

“And yet,” she sighed. “What we have is little more than conjecture. It’s not as if what I’ve learned, or most of what you have, gives us much in the way of legal evidence. I know you guys work pretty much autonomously, but I also remember the Sokovia Accords fiasco and the fact that even though that level of oversight is out of the picture, you’re still answerable to local authority for cooperation both before and after the fact. You guys can’t go into that firehouse based on what we have, at the moment. Legally, what we have is circumstantial. Conjecture.”

But Steve wore the frown he got when he’d begun putting a mission together in his head. “Not…entirely,” he began slowly. “We have Tony and Bruce’s data on the monsters’ likely origin. That’s what put Buck where you met up with him that day. So we’d already started looking in that area. I think…we need round-the-clock surveillance on that building. And I think we need to put some divers in the river, too, see if we can find anything down there. The Porcupines came up out of the water, remember. At least, that’s how they were first sighted.”

“Wait.” Bucky frowned as something else occurred to him. “We’ve used Wanda’s power as probable cause, too, remember? That’s why she told Tony she’d claim it, if he found something weird about the firehouse. Selene’s not Wanda, not an Avenger, but we act on the stuff Wanda turns up all the time. Doesn’t seem like the law should accept the word of one witch and not another, right? At least for probable cause for looking harder?”

“The Avengers have a tip line, too,” Sam agreed. “Total strangers calling in tips on all kinds of things. I think Tony’s got a separate subroutine or something that sorts through them. We only ever hear the credible ones.”

Bucky chuckled as Selene blinked at them. “So, yeah, we’ve got your back.”

She gave a startled laugh. “So I see. Do you suppose the rest of the team will agree?”

“I think most will,” Steve assured her. “We’ll have to explain it all to them, but—actually, would you be willing to attend a team briefing on this? Get everyone up to speed at the same time?”

“You pick your team, Captain.” She smiled, and the expression held the steel they’d begun to learn meant trouble for someone. “I’ll give them everything I can to help get rid of whoever it is playing tumor in the Lower East Side. What we need is to get in there and burn them out. I don’t particularly care how it’s done, except that it not cause any more trouble for us than absolutely necessary.”

Inexplicably, her readiness made pride swell in Bucky’s chest. At least, that’s what he thought it was, and maybe it just had to do with—no, actually, he had no idea what it had to do with. “We’re gonna interview the two who attacked Ace,” he told her while he tried to figure that one out. “See what they can tell us, since we know where they are. And Hamilton, if we can get hold of him.”

She grimaced. “Rick has some…odd beliefs. Government conspiracies, that kind of thing. I don’t know that he’ll be all that helpful. Probably belligerent, though.”

Just then, Steve’s phone rang with FRIDAY’s insistent tone. He hastily excused himself and went to the other end of the garden to answer the call. Selene’s morose sigh distracted Bucky from trying to listen in, though. He tilted his head at her.

“Hey,” he said softly, just to get her attention. “You okay?”

Another, softer, sigh. “Yes.” Her smile looked thin. “Just a little embarrassed. I wouldn’t change my life for anything, stand by everything I’ve ever done as either right or a learning experience, but sometimes…choosing Rick the way I did…”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how old were you?” Sam asked gently.

Her cheeks colored faintly, and Bucky surprised himself by finding it adorable. “I was eighteen when I met him, nineteen when I married him. And a week shy of twenty when Ace was born. He talked a good game, and managed to keep it up until after the baby.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure what’d happened, then, not seeing the expression she wore. Bucky leaned forward, touching two gentle, flesh fingers to her knee. “You were a kid, and kids are still tryin’ to figure the world out. Don’t be embarrassed about that. Important thing is, you got out. Made it through.”

Her smile lit her face. “Thank you, Bucky. You’re right, on all counts. Most of the time, it doesn’t bother me. I didn’t really expect to ever see him again. I guess that’s what threw me. Having him pop back up again, and probably causing at least half this mess…I wasn’t prepared for it.”

“That’s also not your fault,” Sam pointed out.

“No, but it’s definitely annoying.” Dusk and Sable ambled over, flopping down on either side of their mistress. She automatically reached out with both hands to scratch their ears, wrinkling her nose. “I thought I was more stable than this.”

“Everything okay?” Steve asked, concerned, as his shadow fell across the middle of their little group. He’d obviously finished his phone call, and his expression looked grim.

The sniper frowned. “Dunno. Everything okay?”

“FRIDAY says the two who attacked Ace were found dead in their cells while we were in England,” the blond reported with a frown. “Different cells, different jails, different days, but not a mark on either of them, and their cell mates didn’t even notice a problem until they didn’t get out of their bunks in the morning. Just gone, overnight.”

With a shocked, squeaky sort of gasp, Selene’s mouth fell open as her eyes went round. “But… I didn’t feel that! How did they… When?”

Steve folded himself back into his place on the ground. “Jenkins went sometime Saturday night, and the other kid probably Monday.”

“Why should you have felt it, though?” Bucky didn’t like the idea that she’d kept some kind of connection to them. He hadn’t wanted them to die, but they’d been bad news and he didn’t want them having anything further to do with either of the Thomases.

But she shook her head, pinching at the bridge of her nose. “No, I shouldn’t have, which is why I didn’t. The Bindings I placed on them didn’t have much time to settle, so the power should have rebounded back to me, but…” She sighed again and dropped her hand into her lap with a shrug. “Bindings don’t require very much power. It could have come back and I just didn’t notice. I’ve flung a lot of power around this week, by comparison.”

Okay, he didn’t like that very much, either, and couldn’t stop a frown. “Don’t overwork yourself, Selene. We’re back now, and we’re—”

She held up a hand before he got too far with that. Her smile didn’t look the least bit tired, but it held a sharp edge very much like something he’d seen Natasha wear. The steel had returned to her eyes. “By comparison, Bucky. Those Bindings represent a bare trickle against the power I’ve used this week, but I not only didn’t have to spend much of what I brought to bear, what I pulled up just in case is not even a fraction of what I can access if I really need it. Don’t worry about me. I’ll have what I need when I need it.”

She looked around their little circle. “What I’m most concerned about,” she continued, “is that now we’re out two sources of maybe-mediocre information. Rick isn’t going to be willingly helpful, not unless we have something we can use to make him uncomfortable. So what’s the plan, now?”

“I didn’t really expect very much from them, anyway,” Steve mused, frowning at the grass. “This…doesn’t change anything, really. Except… Hm. Is it possible for these Empire people to do—er, I don’t know what I’m asking, here. Could they have done what happened to Jenkins and his partner?”

Selene nodded immediately. “Absolutely. I certainly could have, and so could Ace. Ace could do it without really even exerting himself, actually.”

Unprompted, they suddenly had an answer to what they’d wondered about the young man. Bucky leaned forward again. “Then he can attack using magic, if he needs to?”

She sighed, wrinkling her nose. “He…yes, he can. If he absolutely has to, to protect himself, yes. I’ve taught him how, but I’ve also taught him that he is never, ever to use it unless it’s to save a life. Not ever. It’s…what he would have to do is intensely personal, even more so than breaking a neck with your bare hands or stabbing someone with a short knife. His power works best from inside the body, so that’s how he’d have to—” Her lips twisted sourly as she broke off.

After a moment, she shrugged, clearly reluctant. “Anyway. He can stop a heart, block lungs, even activate or deactivate nerve centers. If he has to. He knows how to do them all, but I’d prefer he never have to experience any of them for any reason, in all of his life. If he goes to his grave as an old man never having used that knowledge…I’d be perfectly content.”

Something in her expression told Bucky that she spoke from intimate experience as clearly as if she’d said the words aloud, and he remembered what she’d said about being able to kill if forced. The thought led directly into what Doctor Strange had said about what being coerced could do to someone like her, and understanding hit him like a shot. “That’s what Strange meant about coerced Guardians,” he blurted, unthinking. “You…your magic. If you’re forced into doing things you don’t want to, you still experience them firsthand, don’t you?”

She nodded grimly, mouth set in a tight line. “Killing, even out of pure necessity, is a shock that leaves… Hm. A kind of stain, I suppose, or a scar. Using magic to do it makes it an intimate thing, a violent contact between souls. Being forced to do wrong of any kind compounds the trauma, spreads the stain, if you will. On top of remembering the action, you’ll actually feel what you’ve done. Forever. It may dull over time, but it never…really goes away.”

Bucky felt as if his blood had turned to ice. He had intimate experience of being forced to kill, and he’d used his hands, but he’d used blades and firearms more often than that. His memories of each kill had come back crystal clear. He hadn’t had any emotion over them, though.

He’d been made into a killing machine, as cold and unfeeling as the cryopods they’d used to store him like the weapon they’d turned him into. He’d lost a lot of sleep over the lack of emotion in those memories, but now he wondered if they’d be worse with the addition of his own immediate horror, his own revulsion and terror at what he’d done piled on top of the death and destruction he’d wrought.

 _Jesus. No, no. Never,_ he thought as he stared at her, then at Steve. _If I have anything to say about it, she and Ace will never have to face that! Christ!_

Steve looked just as horrified, and probably for the same reasons. He’d spent hundreds of long, painful nights sitting up with Bucky while he worked through the mess in his head. Through the guilt and self-loathing those memories had caused. He knew exactly how this must strike the brunet.

To their surprise, Selene leaned toward them. Her hands settled on their wrists, warm and gentle, and she peered into both their faces with steely eyes and that sharp smile. “Easy, guys. It’s all right. Ace is a strong kid, and it won’t happen because we’re going to make sure they don’t get a chance. So I’ll ask again, what’s the plan now?”

Her fingers tightened on their wrists for a moment before she sat up again. She shot Sam a gentle smile, then turned her attention back to Steve. The blond shook his head.

“So the only thing this news changes is that we know a little more about how ruthless these people are.” He shrugged. It didn’t really make much difference, and they all knew it. “While we’re trying to find Hamilton, we’ll get the surveillance going on the firehouse, send someone down to have a look at what’s in the water under it, and we’ll have that team briefing with you sitting in.”

He paused, directing a thoughtful frown at the grass. “I’d like to get some blueprints on the firehouse, too, and then have Rhodey or Tony do a few flyovers with imaging equipment to see if they’ve made modifications that aren’t in the blueprints. I already told FRIDAY I wanted those, so she’s working on them. We should have them by the time we have that team meeting, and I’d like that to be this weekend, if you’ve got time.”

“I’ll make time.” She met each of their gazes. “This is more important than anything else I have on my plate, right now. You schedule the meeting, email me those files, and we’ll be there. I intend Ace to sit in with me, so the weekend’s perfect.”

“Ace?” Steve sounded as startled as Bucky felt and Sam looked. “Are you—”

“I won’t leave him ignorant,” she interrupted. Her tone brooked no argument. “He needs to know how this works. Besides, he might surprise you. It’s possible he’ll have something to contribute.”

To his boyfriend’s amazement, the blond actually backed off that one. He shook his head again. “Okay. Probably Saturday afternoon. That’ll give us a day to get the data we need and try to locate Hamilton.”

“I might be able to help with that,” she offered, frowning faintly. “Maybe. If he’s not behind any shielding but his own.”

“Wait, he’s got what you have, too?” Sam asked incredulously.

Selene snorted. “In a manner of speaking. Most of what he carries is potential he couldn’t tap into in all the time I’ve known him. He’s his own worst enemy in more ways than one. His will is pretty damn weak, which means that if he doesn’t manage on his first try or two, he gives up and finds someone to blame for keeping him from succeeding with whatever he was trying for. I did try to help him while we were together, but he’s got more ambition than power and he tends to overreach himself. He couldn’t do what he wanted, but it became my fault very quickly.” She shrugged. “He hasn’t got enough ability to be dangerous to anyone but himself, now.”

“Okay.” Steve looked around. “Anyone got anything to add?”

Bucky shook his head, and Sam shrugged. “I’ve got laundry to move,” the counselor ventured, moving to stand. “And it sounds like we’ve got this covered as much as possible, for now.”

“You guys have been gone a week,” their landlady agreed with a smile. “I have to imagine you’re tired and have things to catch up on. I have a blanket to finish and a deadline to meet. Feel free to drop by when you wish, of course, but it sounds like we’ve all got something we need to get going on.”

Their impromptu meeting broke up then, and Bucky followed Steve back to their little apartment. They did have things to do, but Ace would be out of work in a few hours. He decided he could do their marketing and then pick the kid up from Carnegie. Maybe soon, they wouldn’t have to worry about their new friends so much. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Somehow, it didn’t strike him that way, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. 


	13. Chapter 13

“Are you freaking kidding me, right now?” Ace very nearly shrieked when Selene told him about the meeting. She’d kept quiet about it until they’d actually piled into the car to head for the Tower. She hadn’t wanted to destroy his concentration at school. “I’m going to sit in on a meeting with the freaking Avengers?”

Selene chuckled. “Yes, you are. And you aren’t going to gawk, either. I expect you to pay attention and learn something about how this is done. I’m not entirely sure about the Avengers, but they can’t do things _too_ differently from the military or the police, and this is something you should at least have some passing idea about. So.”

He rolled his eyes. “Jeeze, Mom, I know. I’ll pay attention. I just didn’t figure you’d want me to be there.”

“This concerns you, too,” she sighed. “Besides, you might have something you can tell us about whatever’s going on inside the firehouse. You’re the one who got sick over it. Your impression’s a whole lot stronger than mine. The more we can tell them, the more prepared they’ll be.”

“Aren’t some of ‘em still in London?” He frowned faintly.

“Last I’d heard, some of them are.” She shrugged. “There isn’t a lot we can do about it. We’re running short on time. Steve said he’d make sure everyone got what they need to know. I’m not sure how many we’ll actually have here helping us, when it comes time for them to go in. That’s one of the things we’ll find out at this meeting.”

A pair of photo ID badges waited for them when they walked into the lobby, this time. Miss Sarah at the reception desk beamed and chirped an excessively enthusiastic greeting when she saw them. She gave a quick and entirely unnecessary explanation of the ways the badges could be used, ran through protocols for reporting loss, and then waved them back to the private elevator. Ace fairly quivered with excitement when FRIDAY greeted them.

“Thank you, FRIDAY,” Selene said as the car started moving upward. “This is my son, Asa. As I’m sure you can see, he’s very excited to be here today.”

“Call me Ace, please.” The young man wore a grin fit to split his face. “I’ve heard about you, FRIDAY. I’m really glad to meet you.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance as well, Master Ace,” the AI replied. Its tone almost sounded amused.

“Can you tell us who’ll be in attendance today?” she asked, hoping that Stark had stayed in London.

Her hopes were dashed. “Mister Stark and Doctor Banner returned this morning, Miss Selene. I’m afraid Thor has remained in London with Doctor Foster and Vision, and Colonel Rhodes is still in Washington DC. The entire Avengers roster, barring those three, are scheduled to attend.”

“Have we had any progress in collecting more information about the location?”

“I am pleased to say that I have at last obtained the blueprints Captain Rogers requested, though I must admit to some doubt of their veracity.” The AI actually sounded slightly smug. Selene grinned at Ace, amused. “The SHIELD team also had opportunity to conduct an underwater survey of the locale late last night. I shall leave it to Director Coulson to present their findings, but I believe you will find them intriguing. If you will step out here, Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, and Master Sergeant Wilson await you in the third conference room on the left. Sir is on his way down.”

They walked into a conference room with a somewhat ridiculous spread of refreshments set out on a table that ran the length of one wall. It really would have been ridiculous, if not for the company it would have to feed. Steve, Bucky, and Sam stood around a small refrigerator at the other end of the room, holding drinks and speaking in low tones. As soon as they cleared the door, the group looked up and grinned.

“Ace, Selene!” Steve greeted them, breaking out into a huge grin. Bucky’s expression didn’t get quite so bright, but he smiled as the blond moved forward. “Look, Tony came back this morning…”

Sam grimaced, but nodded. “We’ll run interference as much as possible, but you should know he’s been very…uh…Tony, today.”

Ace frowned, but Selene chuckled and shook her head. “Guys, I know I’ve said this before. You don’t have to ‘run interference’. I’ll deal with him the same way I already have. It’ll be fine.”

Now Steve’s expression went slightly hangdog. “Selene, he knows—”

“Samantha!” the billionaire’s voice rang out from the doorway behind her. “Darling! So very nice to see you again!”

Selene chuckled under her breath, stepping back to pivot toward the door. He stood just inside the room with Pepper a step behind him. “Mister Stark.” She smiled politely. “I had no idea you felt we were so close. It is nice to see everyone safe and sound after London. Hello, Pepper.”

“Hello, Selene.” The CEO stepped adroitly around her temperamental boyfriend to lean in for a hug. She used a kiss to each cheek in the European fashion as an excuse to murmur, “I’m sorry. Please don’t mind him. He’s running short on sleep again.”

Patting Pepper’s shoulder to show everything was fine, she returned her attention to Stark. Held her hand out. “Thank you for hosting this meeting, Mister Stark.”

“What, no hug? No kisses?” He feigned disappointment but took her hand. “We’re practically best buds after you sent all that data on the poisonous squid-monsters! Even if you did send it to the non-science-types. I could forgive that, but no kisses?”

She turned her smile up another notch. “I would have sent it directly to you, if I could have believed that you’d put it to use and not dismiss it out of hand. Am I to take that to mean that you found it useful? Perhaps that you might consider me an expert in my field, even as you expect me to consider you?” Knowing damn well he wouldn’t admit to all that, she patted the back of his hand.

He aped offense as he reclaimed his appendage with a speed just the right side of rude, then used it to point at her. “Okay, okay, touché. I’ll give you that one. You’re still sneaky, though.”

“Part of my job,” she chuckled. “Mister Stark, Pepper, this is my son, Asa Thomas. Asa, Tony Stark and Virginia Potts.”

He stepped up to offer his hand. “Call me Ace, Miss Potts.”

“Pepper, then, Ace.” The red-haired woman smiled warmly. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Mostly good, I hope.” He answered, coloring lightly. “Although if it came from Mom, I may die of embarrassment right here.”

Pepper laughed. “No, no, your mother and I haven’t had a chance to really chat, yet. It’s all come from the team.” She finally let him go, and he turned to shake Stark’s hand.

The billionaire peered into his face for a moment, nodded once, but didn’t otherwise comment. Which seemed odd. Selene watched him as he meandered over to the fridge, but then the rest of the team arrived.

A man in a black, three-piece suit and a man and woman wearing what looked like patchless SWAT or SpecOps gear came with them. She had a suspicion or two about them, but she didn’t press even when introductions were made and those three people managed to get left out of the proceedings. Eventually, they’d trust her enough. She hoped.

They got down to business. Steve reviewed what they’d gone over in the garden, Selene rose to explain what she and Ace had added to the body of information, and then others added what they’d found. SHIELD’s underwater survey, as presented by the suited man who introduced himself as Director Coulson, revealed what looked like a hidden door well below the water line. It stood tall and wide enough to admit a worrisomely large underwater craft. The Porcupine monster mother would have fit through easily.

Rick, however, remained obnoxiously difficult to pin down. He’d apparently convinced his employers that he retained some value to them, because they seemed to keep him close. Selene’s efforts to locate him always pointed her to the firehouse, even when she used a single drop of the blood Ace shared with him. She could get nothing more than that. FRIDAY hadn’t managed to get even that far.

“This…really isn’t like him,” Selene commented during a lull in discussion. “He’s obnoxious and opinionated, even paranoid, but not all that sophisticated. Preventing even a basic paper trail, concealing his movements, that sort of thing? He doesn’t have the patience, never mind the resources. They have to be taking care of all this for him. I just can’t figure out why they’d bother.”

Stark tapped at his tablet. “He’s got no skills, his resume’s crap, why do we care about this guy?”

“Possible source of information from inside the beast,” Natasha answered, sounding bored. She sat forward. “I’m starting to think it isn’t him that’s important, though. I think he’s got a connection they want.”

Ace snickered under his breath, and Selene shrugged. “He may have convinced them he’s got a connection they want,” she conceded. “But that’s all.”

“What about his blood relation to Ace?” Doctor Banner asked softly. “You said you’d used it to try to locate Hamilton. Can it work the other direction?”

Selene lifted a hand, palm up. “It could, if Ace didn’t have the kind of protection he has. You see, I share blood – genetics – with Ace, too. As a result, I’ve had a Blood Lock on him since before he was born. Nobody’s magic touches him without my knowing it. Anything less powerful than me slides off, and anything more powerful than me might stick if they prepared for me, but it still lights up. Even an exploratory brush like they tried to use a few weeks ago leaves traces I’ll See. He wears a talisman to carry additional protections with him, but for that much, it’s unnecessary.”

 “Mom.” Ace threw her a significant look. When she met his gaze, he tilted his head toward their tenants, and then raised his eyebrows. She sighed. She really hadn’t wanted this meeting to go there, but…that hope had probably always been a non-starter.

“Which is what may be motivating the attacks and feints toward Ace.” She shrugged. “Someone without the protections I’ve got on Ace, say, a normal person not of the Folk? Their DNA or the DNA of a near relative could be used to overwhelm their will, place any number of different types of compulsions or other effects, even alter the physical condition.”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Locating that person would be child’s play. But there’d be little point. Barring the basest, crudest, and typically the most unethical of Working, someone using our kind of magic really couldn’t benefit from subverting a normal person. It’s why we of the Folk put protections on our own. Subverting one of the Folk means gaining access to their power and unique abilities. It’s a kind of slavery.”

“Okay, we’re getting a lot far afield, here.” Stark spoke just a little too loudly into the silence that followed. “So, getting back to this damned firehouse in the Lower East Side, we still don’t really have much in the way of concrete evidence of who’s really running the show or what they’re doing in there.”

He spread his hands over his tablet. “Everything we have is circumstantial at best, and while I’m not saying it’s wrong, I also can’t say it’s right, either. I don’t think anyone with a functioning brain would claim that. I’ll agree they’ve got the facilities they’d need to do what we think they’re doing. Based on what FRI’s dug up, they’ve got the finances, too. Sure, it stinks to high heaven, but what are they really doing in there? Why? What’s the endgame?”

“Are they engineering Porcupine Monsters at that location, or are they just moving them through here on the way to somewhere else?” Bruce agreed gently. “Do they plan to use creatures like them to make global threats in a terrorist play, or is it something more local?”

“Who’s involved?” Natasha added. “Are they serving their own ambition, is it just greed, or is there an ideal in play?”

Unfortunately, but entirely rightly, they’d gone straight to the heart of the problem. Selene could only shake her head. They still did not have enough information to make so much as a start on answering those questions. Here, though, Steve stood up again.

“That’s what we’re here to talk about,” he said, looking around. “We need intel, and I don’t know a better group of people to get it than those in this room. Here’s what I’ve considered for how to proceed.”

He spent the next several minutes outlining what he had in mind. Maps and the suspect blueprints, plus photos of the area, illustrated his points. They reviewed and discussed the official members of the engine company based out of the firehouse, none of whom had anything particularly suspect in their backgrounds that FRIDAY had found.

“Whoa, wait, wait, wait.” Bucky sat forward abruptly. The AI paused in the recitation of personnel. “This guy here. He was in the car with Hamilton when I caught them outside Ace’s school. Run his profile by me again?”

“Tanasin, Vassily Aleksandr, forty-three, no spouse, no children, Lieutenant firefighter, emigrated from Yugoslavia with his family in Nineteen Eighty at the age of six.”

“Where did he get the scar?”

A slight pause, and then, “I can find no record of a medical event which could have caused that scar, Sergeant Barnes. Indeed, I can find no record of a medical nature at all, but for those which qualified him for the position at the firehouse two years ago.”

Tony leaned forward abruptly. “Wait a minute, FRI. Everybody and their brother demands at least an annual physical. He doesn’t even have any of those?”

“None that I have found, Sir. I continue to search as we speak.”

“Nope.” The engineer scowled at his tablet, tapping the surface. “I mean, yeah, keep looking, but reexamine the entire staff. Volunteers and all, and ignore the crap you’ve already found. Dig deeper. What you’ve just told us is the kind of garbage they’d leave lying around for anyone to find. It’s what they want people to see.”

He leaned forward. “How many of those Empire-Imperial-Suck-My-Dick servers have you cracked? Cross-reference this scarred guy with those employee databases. Not just his name, use facial recognition, too. And remind me to rework your search protocols. They are not nearly aggressive enough.”

“Certainly, Sir. Shall I add it to the lab schedule?”

“Yeah, yeah. Put it in there somewhere.” He continued frowning at his tablet. “Now, see, this is the kind of thing we’ve needed. Connections. Real, traceable lines. Buckcicle did the footwork, kicked ass and totally took names.”

Leaning back, he smirked at the rest of the room. “Mark what I did here, FRI, and emulate for the other searches. Because guess what, people? Vassily Aleksandr Tanasin did not immigrate with his parents in the Eighties. He is fifty-three, and…oh. Officer in the JNA all through the Nineties, dropped off the map when Milosevic was ousted. He is Not A Nice Cookie. Also, I’ve got no record of when or how he got here. Look into that, FRI.”

“Of course, Sir.”

Stark looked smug. “See, this is how this is supposed to work. You guys bring me actionable, real-world observations, and I do my technological genius thing. Bing-bang-boom, we get something we can present to local and national authorities without having to ask them to put their Woo-Woo Goggles on, first. This is good work, right here. Even if it needs tweaking.”

Selene managed not to roll her eyes, but only just. Steve and Bucky looked irritated, Sam didn’t bother controlling his eyeroll, and Clint and Natasha managed somehow to look amused without actually changing their expressions. Pepper’s eyes had gone flinty.

Poor Doctor Banner just looked uncomfortable, but Wanda looked ready to skin Stark right there. Pietro appeared annoyed, and there might just be mischief brewing in his head. Too bad for the billionaire.

Director Coulson and the two mystery attendees very clearly didn’t want to show anything, either, though the man in what was probably unmarked SHIELD gear wore a faint frown.

Ace’s frown, however, looked thunderous. He got, very deliberately, to his feet. The motion drew every eye in the room. Stark looked suddenly amused. Selene covered her smile with one hand.

“You’re very short on sleep, aren’t you, Mister Stark?” the young man asked. His tone remained perfectly polite, though his expression spoke volumes. “It must have been a very long week in London, and then the long flight back, huh? All the alcohol in your system can’t be helping. I’m impressed you’re holding it together so well, though. You’ve got to be at, what, more than point-two blood alcohol? FRIDAY?”

“Mister Stark’s blood alcohol level is currently point-two-one-five, Master Ace.” The AI very nearly sounded smug. Stark threw a guilty look at Pepper, whose expression went from flinty to stony. He winced, then glowered at the young man across from him.

Ace’s frown became a grimace, and then a small smile. “Ouch, and that’s coming down. You’re dehydrated and exhausted, Mister Stark. That’s got to be one screamer of a headache. No, it’s okay, you don’t have to deny it. I can Feel it from over here, and your dry mouth, too.”

He folded his arms across his chest. Gradually, a soft green glow suffused his body, limning him in color visible even in the bright lights of the conference room.

“You really should be drinking more water than alcohol, at your age,” he continued, painfully polite. “Dehydration like this will make you look ten years older. Is there a sports drink of some kind in that fridge? Something with electrolytes in it? If not, a plain old bottle of water will do for now if someone will pass it this way. And if you don’t mind, Mister Stark, I’ll help you with the rest. You’re giving _me_ a headache.”

Sam and Bucky snickered, the sound cut off abruptly at a look from Steve.

“Respectfully, mijo,” Selene murmured. Ordinarily, she’d also have commented on the glow, which represented power wasted as overflow. In this case, she didn’t, because he’d clearly intended it to make a point.

“Hai, Okāsama,” he murmured back. Pepper set a bottle of bright blue sports drink down rather firmly in front of the billionaire, whose frown only deepened.

“Okay, look, kid, your Mom already gave me the tour,” he groused. “You can kill the lightshow.”

The light vanished immediately, as if someone had flipped a switch, and Selene shifted to draw his attention. “Ace’s abilities are quite different from mine, Mister Stark. If you’ll allow him to finish his demonstration, you’ll need to take a drink, please. He’s asking for your Woo-Woo Goggles as well, of course.”

With every eye in the room on him, what else could he do? He snorted sullenly, then twisted the top off the bottle and took an unnecessarily long, petulant drink. Little could he know that finishing off nearly half the bottle at one go would only help Ace do what he intended. Selene sat back in her chair and didn’t even bother to hide her satisfied smile.

“Thank you, Mister Stark,” Ace said as soon as the bottle sat on the table again. “I’m serious about the water, by the way. Your liver isn’t in terrible shape yet, but I’m sure you’re aware it’s not going to go on like that forever.”

He looked a little unfocused as he went on. “Mainlining caffeine with alcoholic chasers is really hard on it. There, your headache should be better, now, and—oh. Wow. Okay, got the knee, too. That had to hurt. How were you not limping? Er…sorry, sir. You um…yeah. I’m done. I hope that’s better, now.”

Everyone in the room could see that ‘better’ didn’t cover the half of it. Selene had Watched as Ace used the liquid and electrolytes the billionaire had just consumed to get rid of the inflammation in Stark’s head, soothed a number of bruises and minor scrapes entirely away, and then corrected a strained ligament in the knee that would probably have torn with too much more use. The onlookers in the room saw the engineer blink in surprise, straightening in his seat, and then relax his expression and the lines of his shoulders probably without even noticing.

“It’s…” He shifted in his seat, looking thoughtful. “Yeah, it is. Thanks, kid.”

Ace nodded. “You can take the Woo-Woo Goggles off, now. It’ll last, I promise.”

Sam, Bucky, and Doctor Banner, of all people, snickered. Stark threw them all a glare, and then winced when Pepper laid her hand on his wrist. Steve made a very soft sound that might have been a suppressed snort, then flicked a list and the plans and maps back to hovering over the remains of the food in the center of the table.

“Okay, so let’s get back to the maybe-Hydra-maybe-something-else hiding in that firehouse,” he announced pointedly. “Here’s what I’m looking to get done.”

The remainder of the meeting went smoothly, with no more doubt or aspersions being cast at either Selene or Ace when they volunteered information or suggestions based in their own specialty. Stark still sought scientifically-grounded explanations for much of what they said, and Doctor Banner may have remained a touch dubious, but the snark and outright disbelief seemed to have died down for the most part. Selene even caught the billionaire eyeing her and her son with speculation in his eyes. If that look meant what she thought it did, she’d have to nip the idea in the bud, but it wouldn’t matter for a while, yet.

When everyone’s attention had gone to the map hovering over the table, she reached over to pat her son’s hand with pride. His answering smile warmed her. She focused on the discussion, feeling much better about their chances against whatever had been happening in the Lower East Side.

* * *

The meeting ran longer than he’d expected, but Steve felt pretty good about what they’d accomplished as he climbed into the front passenger seat of Selene’s car for the drive back to Brooklyn. Tony seemed to have gotten over at least some part of his magical hangup, and now the whole team plus some had met the Thomases.

He’d been surprised to see Coulson, Trip, and May in the room, but it’d turned out a good thing. At least, he hoped it would. They’d be able to help where members of the Avengers would be too easily recognizable. Like in the surveillance they’d outlined for the firehouse.

It felt good to have a working plan in place, such as it was.

Yet as the old saying went, “The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.” In this case, the plans of superheroes and witches, and they went slightly further than just ‘awry’. The military among them would probably have called it ‘FUBAR’.

They’d nearly reached the Midtown Tunnel when Ace huffed an irritated sigh from the back seat. “Is there any particular reason Mister Stark’s such an ass about magic, or is it just a general prejudice because he’s an ass?”

Steve felt his eyes widening in surprise at the language even while an entirely inappropriate snicker got caught in the back of his throat. Honestly, if a teenaged kid could call Tony’s crap for what it was… He tried to suppress the laugh, he really did, but it partially escaped as a faint sort of snort, anyway. Very like it had in the conference room a few hours ago. Half-turning in his seat to look at the young man, he allowed himself a small smile.

“Tony’s just—”

A hole suddenly punched through the windshield, dead-center, sending cracks webbing crazily all across the glass. Selene uttered a strangled cry and jerked at the wheel, right arm dropping to the seat at her side. The car swerved as two metallic _thunk_ s impacted the hood, and then they slammed hard into something that didn’t move. The airbags deployed. Stars erupted across Steve’s vision.

 _Shooting. Someone’s shooting at us,_ he realized as he fought to clear his sight. The airbag had already deflated, so he tore the seatbelt buckle out of its fastenings with one hand while he reached for the shield at his feet with the other. _Gotta cover Selene and Ace, get ‘em away from here…_

A wobbly groan from the back seat told him that Ace at least remained alive. His head swiveled, looking for Selene. He found her slumped against her door, eyes closed, blood from a clearly broken nose slowly covering the lower half of her face. Her right shoulder also seemed to bleed heavily from what looked like a gunshot wound. _Damn, she’s hit…_

Suddenly, the car lurched sideways, away from the cement wall it had ended up against. Selene’s door jerked open with a shriek of metal, and Bucky filled the empty space. “Whoa!” he exclaimed as she sagged against her seatbelt. “Easy Sel—shit, she’s out. Stevie, you okay? Steve?”

Seeing his boyfriend eased a fear he hadn’t yet registered. Bucky and Sam had followed in Sam’s car. They might have been shot at, too. “Yeah, I’m good. We’re under fire, Buck, stay low. Selene’s hit, no idea where the shooter is. I’ve got my shield. Gonna come around to your side.”

The back door opened. “Ace? Buddy, you okay?” Sam asked.

Steve kicked his door open and tumbled out onto the road as Ace groaned again. He darted around the back end of the car, fetching up against the rear fender in time to see the medic slice through the young man’s seatbelt with a hooked, serrated knife.

“I let FRIDAY know what’s happened,” Sam grunted. He’d pulled Ace toward him, half out of his seat, but the kid was easily as tall as the counsellor, and already had more breadth to his shoulders. “We should have help in a couple minutes.”

“Here, let me,” Steve waved him off. “They know there’s a shooter? No idea where they’re firing from.”

“A what? No! I didn’t—” As if to prove it, another spray of bullets hit the car.

“Move your asses!” Bucky growled. He already had Selene cradled against his chest. “We can’t stay here, we’re sitting goddamn ducks!”

Steve threw himself past the end of the car, headed for Sam’s, but another line of bullets impacting the asphalt directly in his path forced him to change directions. At least the road ran through the middle of a park with thick trees. The shooter would have to chase them into the trees if they wanted to keep firing at them. At that point, the advantage would swap to them.

Except that an ambush of another kind altogether waited for them in the darkness under the trees. They’d been herded.

Dark, vaguely-human shapes bounced among the tree trunks, half-hidden in the gloom. He couldn’t tell exactly how large they were, or even what they were, but he got the distinct idea they’d find out right up close and personal in just a few minutes. Damn it.

He glanced around, looking for any place even slightly defensible. The best he could see was a shallow depression against the bank of the tunnel, flanked by a pair of trees not nearly as large as he’d have liked.

Ace stirred as he aimed for it. “Mom?”

“Bucky’s got her,” he answered. “She’s a little bit hurt, though. You awake enough to help her?”

“Yeah, I…” The kid blinked owlishly. “I think so. Where are we?”

“Park near the crash. It wasn’t an accident, and we’re about to be under attack.” Steve paused to settle him against the bank. “Don’t worry, though. Sam’ll help you, and Bucky and I’ll hold ‘em off ‘til help gets here, okay? Just take care of your Ma.”

Bucky settled Selene beside her son and waved Sam in on her other side. “Get on the horn, make sure the fliers know there might be enemy overwatch, yeah?” he growled to the medic.

“I got this. Just keep ‘em off our backs.”

 The two soldiers got in place shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the little hollow, and then they’d run out of time. Somewhere in size between a large chimpanzee and a small gorilla, their assailants had disturbingly human eyes. They moved quick and nearly silent, too, making them hard to keep track of.

Their bodies appeared to have a covering of oily hair that seemed to form a kind of armor not quite bulletproof, but close. Oversized, pointy teeth and razor-sharp talons tipping each digit on both hands and feet seemed their only weapons…until they started picking things up off the ground.

It became obvious almost from the start that the monkey-things wanted to separate them, both from each other and from the small group they had set up to defend. Because they’d been ambushed in the middle of New York City in the middle of the day, none of the Avengers wore any tac gear. It meant that thrown rocks or jabbed sticks had little more than cloth, blue jeans and tees, to get through to cause injury. At least the claws only impacted the barriers their totems raised when the creatures got too close.

Bucky had only a few pistols on him, with two extra magazines apiece, and a handful of knives in various sizes. Sam had just one sidearm and two extra magazines. Ammo started out dear and ran desperately short very quickly.

Steve had only the shield and couldn’t even use it the way he normally would because he couldn’t risk moving too far in any direction. Clearly, they had not taken the threat to the Thomases at all seriously enough. They’d come up a day late and more than a few dollars short.

“Son of a—” Sam’s curse cut off abruptly with a heavy _crunch_ and a terrifying wheeze. At the same time, a number of monkey-things dropped out of the trees above, driving Steve to his knees and nearly carrying the shield out of his hands. He wanted, needed to see what had happened behind him, but a stick-club impacted his side and what felt like a rock crunched into his left shoulder. He swallowed a yell and fought back to his feet, laying about him with abandon.

“Mom! No, stop—Sam! Someone—no! No!” Ace’s voice held a note of terrified desperation he’d hoped never to hear from either of the Thomases.

Steve tried to turn, to see what had gone wrong, but the damned creatures required all of his attention to prevent them overwhelming him. He spent long, precious moments fighting them off, tossing them away, but any of them that didn’t get knocked out or killed outright came bouncing back almost as quickly as he got rid of them.

“Hang on, Ace!” he tried to call out, though it came out as more of a snarl than he’d intended and he didn’t know that it could be heard over gunfire and fists connecting. “Ace!”

“Let me go! No! _Let go!_ ”

Dammit, his voice sounded farther away than it should. Heart in his throat, Steve finally freed his shield arm enough to sweep most of the monkey-things off of himself. He lurched around to look.

Sam, blood running down his forehead, knelt groggily over Selene. She remained prone and unconscious, responding not at all while the medic took judicious shots at the dark shapes lurking in the trees and on the steep slope above the little hollow. Ace should have been right there, beside his mother.

He wasn’t.

“Ace!” He looked around frantically, just in time to catch two more leaping monkey-things with the shield. Putting them down hard enough they’d stay that way took another moment, and then he scanned the area again. For a breathless heartbeat, he couldn’t find the young man. Then a seething knot of motion fifteen meters away caught his attention.

At least twenty of the monkey-things had surrounded the young man. He fought, kicking and swinging as best he could, but the things had all but picked him up bodily. They headed back toward the road, and they seemed determined to carry Ace with them.

“Buck! They’re trying to take Ace!”

“Go! We’re good he—”

The blond had already launched himself after the things that held Ace when an ear-splitting bellow shattered the eerie near-silence under the trees. Movement on his periphery warned him just early enough to dive to one side as a very large, very hairy shape landed heavily where he’d have stood if he’d just continued on. The monkey-things had brought a big brother.

It stood probably fifteen feet tall, had the same teeth and talons as its smaller buddies, and wore what looked like the same coat of fur. It also seemed to have hairless, bony plates covering its chest and belly. Where the others appeared slim, wiry and strong like a chimp, this thing looked like nothing so much as a silverback gorilla standing upright. And now, it stood directly between Steve and the group carrying Ace off toward the Midtown Tunnel.

The sound of gunfire behind him stopped abruptly as the other monkey things apparently broke off their fight. In the heartbeat it took Steve to roll back to his feet, the smaller creatures began bouncing past in a much-reduced group, moving around Big Ugly toward the street. Screeching tires, honking horns, and the heavy crunch of metal told him that the group carrying Ace had already reached the heavily-trafficked road.

 _They’re retreating,_ he realized. _This thing is their rearguard. I have to get around it!_

Immediately, he launched the shield directly at the thing’s face. He threw himself after it, catching the disc on the rebound as Big Ugly staggered and bellowed in outrage. The sound did not have nearly enough pain in it, though.

A taloned hand shot out to catch his calf as he tried to dodge past. The totem-barrier shimmered around his leg but didn’t stop the thing from getting a hold – it just grabbed the _barrier_ , all but ignoring the sparks and smoke that rose from its hand. He folded in half, snapping the shield downward at the thing’s wrist. It connected solidly, eliciting an awful bass screech, but then the hand let go and Steve had all he could do to get himself curled up behind the shield before he slammed into the trunk of a nearby tree.

The tree gave an ominous crack, and the top half came down before he could get out of the way. Arm-thick branches bludgeoned him, twigs whipping at his exposed skin, as it fell. Gunfire erupted nearby as he thrashed clear of the crown, and then the blessed sound of a repulsor blast joined in. Big Ugly bellowed again.

“Jesus, Cap, you okay?” Hawkeye asked as he and the Black Widow arrived from the direction of the street.

“Fine,” he answered, clipped. “Where’s the rest of the team?”

“Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are chasing down the littler hairballs,” the Widow answered. “They’re spreading south of here like you set their tails on fire. Scattering like dandelion fluff.”

“Was there a big group, twenty or so, all together?” he demanded. “Maybe carrying something?”

They blinked at him. “We only saw ones and twos, maybe a couple groups of three,” the archer told him.

He suppressed a curse. “Big group carried Ace off. Literally. Hawkeye, get up high, see if you can find that group.”

“Roger that!” The smartass took off in the direction of the closest tall building.

“Selene took a round to the shoulder, maybe some kind of knock to the head. Falcon’s got her—”

“Right here, Cap.” The medic stepped out of the trees with the small woman in his arms, blood still slipping down his face to stain the collar of his tee shirt. Bucky stalked along at his side. “Didn’t wanna stay back there, in case some of those things decided to circle back.”

Steve nodded. “Good call. Widow, get them—” Big Ugly bellowed again, staggering backward. Its foot missed the curb, dropping into the street, and it toppled over like a felled tree. Metal shrieked a protest as it flattened three recently-abandoned cars. It didn’t move again. They all stood there, waiting to be sure, for a long moment. At last, Bucky lowered his guns and turned to meet Steve’s gaze.

The sniper looked like someone had put his clothes into a blender. All the slashes looked bloody, though some had already scabbed over and only a few still bled actively. Judging by the steely grey gaze he received, he looked much the same. They’d lost the group of monkey-things that’d taken Ace. Unless Hawkeye or one of the other Avengers caught sight of them…

His gaze went to the pale, still woman in Sam’s arms. “How the hell do we tell her?”


	14. Chapter 14

 

“Thanks, Eilene,” Sam said as he pulled his uniform top on over the cuts she’d just finished bandaging for him. “Do you know where they took Selene?”

The nurse tilted her head, considering. “Pretty sure I heard them directing her to Trauma One. FRIDAY can tell you which of the rooms she’s in, if they’ve already finished treating whatever she had going.”

“Right. Thanks again. I’m gonna…” He made a vague gesture toward the door, ducking into the hallway beyond when she waved him off.

“Miss Selene has just been settled into Room Two, Master Sergeant Wilson,” the AI volunteered as he started down the hallway.

He pulled an about-face. “Thanks.”

Much to his surprise, every single one of the Avengers on site had packed into her room. Thankfully, they’d used a double with one unoccupied bed, since seven extra people plus himself and a doctor didn’t leave a lot of room for anything else. It looked like he’d come in right on Doctor Cho’s heels, though, if the tense and expectant expressions around the room gave anything to go by.

“Miss Thomas sustained a broken nasal bone and mild concussion, very probably from impact with the airbag,” she explained as he stepped into the room. He edged off to one side, trying to get a glimpse of the woman in the bed, and propped a hip against the counter beside the door.

“Unfortunately, she also received a large-caliber gunshot wound to her right shoulder. The bullet impacted her right upper shoulder and took small pieces of bone off of the humerus and clavicle, with a somewhat larger piece exiting the wound with the bullet from the scapula. We were able to remove the bone shards with other debris while we worked tonight, but it’s very likely she’ll require tissue reconstructive surgery to correct damage to the soft tissue in the joint. We’ll have to wait for some of the swelling to go down to know for certain.”

 _She wouldn’t need that if Ace had been able to work,_ Sam thought sourly. _I wonder if he even got a chance to get started on the damage, or if he only had time to control the bleeding. Damn it, we knew they’re targets.  Why didn’t we call a car from Stark to get back and forth for this damn meeting?_

He kept kicking himself, unable to stop quite yet. _Bet she’d have humored us and taken a less obvious route, too, if we’d said something. Now she’s hurt and Ace is gone and Jesus, they’re probably going to try to break him…_

He throttled down the panic that tried to rise at that thought, but he could see it in the eyes of the two super soldiers across the room. They stood right at her bedside, appearing as pale as they seemed angry. Steve’s fingers lay lightly on her uninjured shoulder, while Bucky’s hand covered hers protectively. The docs had put her right arm in a sling and strapped it across her front. Her face had begun to show its damage, swelling and a horrible black bruise spreading across both eyes and her nose like a macabre mask.

“She didn’t lose enough blood to be in any real danger from it,” Doctor Cho continued. “But she’s weak as a result, and that’s likely why she hasn’t awakened. Given her preexisting health conditions, it may be several hours, yet.”

“We can’t wait that long,” Bucky grated as soon as the doctor had gone. “We’re already wasting time Ace doesn’t have. They might not start on him right away, but they will start. I’m not givin’ ‘em a second longer with him than we have to.”

“No, we’re not,” Steve agreed, face like granite. “They’ll have taken him to the firehouse. We’re hitting that place tonight. Anyone not on board, now’s the time to find something else to do.”

No one moved in the silence that followed. After a moment, everyone looked at Tony. He affected offense. “Like I’d bow out now. In case anyone missed it, they just used engineered monkey-creatures to take a kid who never did anything worse than mentor other kids. He probably helps little old ladies cross the street.”

“And he fixed your hangover,” Natasha pointed out wryly. “And your knee.”

The billionaire jabbed a finger in her direction. “And that.”

Sam rolled his eyes. Tony would never grow the hell up. How anyone like Pepper could put up with him, he would never understand. Steve opened his mouth, but a soft sound from the bed interrupted before he could speak. Every eye went to the woman lying in their midst.

Selene frowned, the expression barely a twitch, and then she winced and gasped. The blond at her side leaned down to squeeze her uninjured shoulder gently, but the brunet beside him spoke first as he wrapped his fingers around her hand. “Easy, Selene. Try not to move.”

 _Huh. So much for ‘may be several hours, yet’, Doc,_ Sam thought as she began to stir weakly. _And this news isn’t gonna go down easy. Gonna have to be ready in case she tries to get up._ He edged a little closer to the bed.

Selene sighed and opened her eyes as much as the swelling would allow. For a single moment, her gaze darted around the room to the gathered faces, and every one of the Avengers held their breath. Then she grimaced cautiously and settled her attention on the super soldiers at her left.

“They have him in the firehouse,” she mumbled thickly into the silence, words mangled by the injuries to her face. “Or, well, below it. He’s not hurt, he’s mad as hell, and they haven’t even gotten through the wards he’s put up himself. My protections haven’t been touched, yet. He’s okay, for the moment.”

Sam blinked, his own surprise mirrored on every face in the room. _Guess we won’t have to calm a panicked mother,_ he thought faintly. _Or even tell her what the hell happened. Holy shit, that’s creepy. Also, what the hell, guys? Give her some room!_

Steve and Bucky had leaned in, hovering over her with nearly-identical worried expressions creasing their faces. For a weird moment, Sam had a disconnected sense of déjà vu. As if he’d been here before, but on different occasions with each of the super soldiers.

He had to examine that thought to find an explanation: Steve had worn the exact same expression, and leaned in the exact same way, when Bucky had come out of anesthesia after getting his new, non-Hydra arm. Bucky had struck this exact pose the last time Steve had been seriously injured in the field, and vice-versa. The sniper’s position and expression were the more familiar, though. Their Captain had a tendency to throw himself into the action without heed of personal risk, so he’d been in the medical bed a whole lot more often than his boyfriend.

 _Okay, so what the hell, guys?_ the medic thought as he watched them treat her the way they treated each other. _Not sure this could get any more surreal, and we were attacked by monkey-monsters this evening. What the hell?_

Oblivious to his discomfit, their conversation went on. He shook his confusion off for later as Steve nodded. “We’re going to get him tonight. Try not to worry. We’ll bring him home.”

“You just rest up,” Bucky added. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

But Selene's expression twisted in what could have been a frown or a smirk, the swelling made it hard to identify. “Guys, they took him inside their warding. They took _my son_ , and _my magic_ , inside their protections. I have everything, now. Where he is, where their power locus is, what they’re doing down there. They have more creatures, lots more, and several different types. I’m going with you.”

Eyes widened all over the room, but Steve gently squeezed her shoulder again. “You can’t go with us, Selene. You’re already badly hurt. Doctor Cho says you’ll probably need surgery, and you can’t move your shoulder. Hey, no, take it easy.”

She’d begun to shake her head, cautiously at first and then more vigorously as he spoke. When she tried to tug her hand out from under Bucky’s, the sniper tightened his hold. “Selene, doll, you ain’t gettin’ outta this bed ‘til the Doc clears you,” he gruffed. “Now quit fidgeting, you’re gonna hurt yourself worse.”

“Guys,” she breathed, the sound half a pained gasp and half a resigned sigh as she subsided back against her pillow. “What if I can go with you, lead you through their rabbit warren, without leaving this bed?”

The super soldiers exchanged a dubious look, but that just sounded like Steve-level bad-patient trouble, to Sam. He stepped to the end of her bed. “Selene, you’ve trusted Ace to us for the last several weeks. Please, stay here, get some rest. Let us bring him home.”

“That isn’t it, Sam,” she insisted, turning unerringly to meet his gaze with her own. The concussion didn’t seem to have slowed her down very much. “I do trust you, all of you, with Ace. But I want all of you to come back as healthy as possible, too, and I can help make sure that happens.”

She took a breath. “I’ll pay for it later, but I can go with you and lead you to where we’ll need to go. I should even be able to give some warning about traps and ambushes along the way.”

Bucky eyed her intently. “You never said anything about being a telepath.”

“She is not,” Wanda objected.

“No, I’m not,” Selene said at the same time. She turned her hand over to grip the sniper’s hand in hers. “It’s nothing like that. Please, just—oh, it’s easier to show you than try to explain. There’s no time for this. Help me sit up a little more?”

Steve hesitated for a moment, but reached for the bed controls at Bucky’s curt nod. Sam gritted his teeth and wondered how he’d managed to saddle himself, a trained medic, with such contrary people so close in his life. Then he looked around the room. Superheroes. Right. “Obstinate” and “contrary” must go hand-in-hand with “ridiculous” and “persistent” in the job description he’d never read. Selene's "Guardian" job must be the supernatural equivalent.

“Okay,” Selene said when the head of the bed had come up to her liking. “I need some room. Clear some space, please. About five-by-six feet? Something like that, you’ll know if I need more. It’s been a while since I did this, so I might. Thank you.”

Before anyone could ask what she meant by that, she’d closed her eyes. Almost immediately, a kind of muted blue glow suffused her body. It grew gradually brighter for several long moments. Then it expanded, bowing out on her left to encompass the cleared space beside the bed. The air held a tense anticipation while the light grew, and then a blinding flash made everyone wince and blink hard.

Wanda’s strangled gasp made Sam knuckle his eyes until he could see again. A semi-transparent wolf of ridiculous proportion stood, glowing faintly, in the space Steve and Bucky had vacated. Its—her—shoulders rose to the level of the blond’s waist, her head easily reaching halfway up his chest. If she stood up on her hind legs, she’d tower over the super soldier and wouldn’t fit beneath the ceiling.

“The Wolf,” Steve breathed, one hand making an abortive gesture toward the blue-glowing creature.

Bucky, more than a little wild-eyed, appeared torn between shoving Steve away from the apparition and moving toward it—her—himself. He settled for taking a half-step toward them both, his gaze bouncing back and forth between the ethereal creature standing in front of him and the motionless woman in the bed. His voice sounded breathless when he said, “Strange didn’t say anything about this…”

The wolf shook herself, pointed ears flapping against her head while thick fur and long tail thrashed back and forth. Her forequarters dipped into a long stretch, and she yawned, showing finger-long teeth Sam decided he definitely didn’t want to know any more about. Overwhelmed, he wrenched his gaze away.

It landed on the woman still reclining in the medical bed, eyes closed in what he would have sworn was nothing more than normal slumber. The monitors showing her vitals all hummed along as usual, unaffected by whatever had just happened. She looked injured, but entirely peaceful.

“FRIDAY, tell me you’re scanning this,” Tony all but wheezed. “Tell me you got the whole process, and then tell me what the hell we’re looking at.”

“I am scanning, Sir,” the AI replied. “I have scanned all but approximately the first second of the process. And I believe we have viewed evidence of Doctor Reed Richards’ theoretical psion particle. This is a very tightly controlled, very organized manifestation, Sir. I can find no reference positing even the possibility of what Miss Selene displays, here.”

“And this is happening how?”

“I do not know, Sir.”

The wolf heaved a visible sigh, though it made no actual sound. _“I can’t tell you, Stark. I don’t know. I was taught to think of it as a manifestation of my soul. Doctor Strange would probably call it an astral projection. What I know is, it’s damn difficult to do, takes years of practice to control reliably, and it uses a dangerous amount of strength and energy to maintain. I’ll need days of recovery, after tonight.”_

The words seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, all at once. Sam couldn’t even have said for certain if he heard an actual sound. It sounded mostly like Selene’s voice, but with an indescribable quality that made it almost otherworldly. The wolf’s mouth didn’t move, didn’t even open, but the body language definitely suggested speech. Her head swung around to face Steve and Bucky.

_“This is how I’ll go with you. I’m less vulnerable in this form, and far more dangerous. Like this, I can fight.”_

The blond actually tilted his head. “How?”

_“Like any canine. Teeth and claws are real, at least when I want them to be. Here, touch my head.”_

To his credit, he didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward, setting one hand on Bucky’s hip while the other reached out to settle atop the wolf’s glowing head…except it didn’t. His hand went right through the light, as if he’d tried to grasp one of Tony’s holograms. The sniper made a soft sound in the back of his throat.

_“Now try again.”_

The quality of the blue light changed, just enough to be noticeable if someone looked for it. He reached out again, and this time his palm came to rest between the ears, compressing the fur. His eyes widened. “You can do that at will? How hard is it to change back and forth?”

_“It takes focus. Easier now than in the middle of a fight, but I can do it then, too. I wouldn’t be much of a Guardian if I couldn’t multitask with confidence.”_

“This’ll be more than just a fight.” Bucky looked a little better, now. Calmer. Sam couldn’t decide if he agreed, or not. “If they’re half what we think they are, it’ll be a firefight.”

She sat down, ears twitching backward, then forward again. Her head still came halfway up Steve's chest.  _“I know. You all have far more experience at that than I have. When it comes to the fight, I will follow direction. But Ace is mine.”_

Turning her massive head, she regarded the rest of the team, Sam included, with eyes of blue flame.  _“You are all mine._ _I can Feel what you will face tonight, and I will help. I won’t be dead weight to be carried and protected, I promise. Will you let me go with you to retrieve my son and root out this nest of parasites?”_

As creepy and bizarre as the situation had suddenly become, when she put it like that, what the hell else could he say? Sam swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. I’m game. If they’re really after you for what you can do, then they already know what you can do, and that means there might be more magic for us to face than just the creatures we’ve already seen. We’re gonna need the edge.”

Clint moved through the crowd to step around the end of the bed, coming throat-to-nose with the wolf. He looked fascinated, halfway between elated and stunned, and he wore a ridiculous grin. “Damn, you’re bigger than a Great Dane. By at least twice. That’s…holy shit, this is amazing. If they’re too dumb to let you in on this, you can hang out with me. We’ll find a high place I can snipe from, and you can keep the bad shit off my back.”

“She will be far better use on the move, Clint,” Wanda told him, amused. “That’s how wolves hunt, isn’t it? We’ll be underground, anyway. I say she should go.”

“He is her son.” Pietro shrugged. “Family should be together.”

“You know, Fury and Coulson are going to have shitfits about this,” Tony pointed out casually. “But who am I to say no to the infuriating, psion-producing Glinda the Good Witch?”

“We don’t know enough about these people. We can’t afford not to take her, at this point.” Natasha sounded totally indifferent, which Sam had begun to realize meant that she cared a very great deal.

Everyone looked at the two super-soldiers, who exchanged an opaque look. Steve wore what Sam privately thought of as his Man Making A Plan face, an indication he’d already made up his mind. He nodded once. “All right. Tell us what you can about that place and what we can expect, and let’s go get Ace.”

Selene got to her blue-glowy feet again, all four of them. Her tail waved back and forth, just once. The team began to file out into the hallway, Sam shuffling out with the rest of them. As they moved, he glanced back over his shoulder and couldn’t help but wonder.

 _She said, ‘Ace is mine. You are all mine.’ And Ace told us a while back not to let her hear us claiming them as ours. Is this what he meant when he said she’d claim us back?_ He considered it for a long moment, watching as the wolf padded soundlessly at Bucky’s left. _This is crazy. Insane. But…I can’t really see it as a bad thing, either. Holy shit, what is my life?_  

* * *

As soon as the monkey-things had dumped him on the floor of some kind of vehicle, human hands held Ace down and injected him with…something. It made him feel heavy, sluggish, but didn’t actually put him out. Judging by the reactions of the three people with him, they’d expected him to lose consciousness. He touched his own protections with a little more power and kept still, feigning more incapacity than he actually felt.

It helped that he could feel his mother’s necklace talisman burning with a sullen, protective anger.

 _Mom’s alive. I know I got most of the bleeding stopped, and she’s at least started healing._ Whatever they’d tried to drug him with made it difficult to focus, but he thought they were southbound. _Mom’ll be okay, and she’s with Steve and Bucky. And Sam. They’ll find me. I just have to hold out. If they’re gonna start with drugs…_

He allowed his eyes to drift closed and set about putting blood-barriers in place. By the time he’d finished, they could inject him just about anywhere, with just about anything, and it wouldn’t get to his heart or brain. Setting those barriers up didn’t take much power or effort, but getting rid of what they’d already gotten into his system would.

It took way too long for him to consider doing more and decide that it’d be better to conserve his strength than to try to rid himself of the drugs. He couldn’t know how long he’d have to withstand…whatever these people would do to get whatever they wanted. Holding off for now seemed like a good idea.

The hard part, of course, was that he didn’t know what they wanted, and he didn’t know what they’d be willing to do as ‘persuasion’.

Their first attempt actually made him laugh.

He’d lost a bit of time somewhere, so maybe the injection eventually did what it should have. When he opened his eyes again, he lay on a narrow but relatively comfortable cot in a room painted a warm beige. It had no carpet, just a beige-tiled floor, and a combination sink and toilet in the opposite corner. For all the warm color scheme, it reminded him forcibly of the prison cells he’d seen on television reality shows.

One wall had both a door – no doorknob – and a half-length window in it. The window, of course, only reflected the room he lay in. He knew without needing to ask that anyone on the other side would be able to see him. He could only wonder who stood behind that glass.

Cautiously, he sat up. His head felt a great deal less hazy than before. Getting to his feet took a moment and he wobbled a little, but he managed to get to the door only to find that it wouldn’t budge. Not a surprise. Turning, he went to the sink and splashed water on his face, trying to get back to full alertness.

Just a moment later, as he used his shirt to dry his face and hands, the door opened behind him. He turned at the sound. Rick Hamilton’s excessive bulk filled the doorway, wearing dress slacks and a button-down shirt. The buttons strained a little across his midsection. He smiled awkwardly as the door closed behind him.

“Hello, Son.”

Ace stared at him, emotion washing through him. Anger and suspicion came first, but quickly gave way to irritation. That’s when it hit him: whoever these people were, they expected _this man_ to convince him to cooperate.

He laughed. In the back of his mind, he realized the sound might have edged slightly into hysteria, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been attacked, carried off by weird monkey-creatures, drugged, and locked up in a prison cell. The whole situation probably entitled him to at least a little hysteria.

“You?” he snickered, unable to stop. “After all this bullshit, they open with you? You didn’t bother to tell them, did you?”

“Tell them what?” Rick asked with a disapproving frown. “I’m your Dad.”

That made the laughter worse, and Ace wobbled back to the cot to collapse on its edge. It took him several long moments to regain control of himself. Hamilton’s frown grew more and more disapproving the longer he laughed.

“Ohhhh, holy crap.” Ace snickered. “Wow. Okay, just wow. I don’t have a Dad, Rick. I had a _donor_ , and you were the lucky guy who totally screwed up every single chance he ever had to be a Father, never mind a Dad. You don’t even know me. You’re working with the people who shot my Mom and kidnapped me, and you think you’re gonna just walk in here and I’m gonna be grateful? For what? A familiar face? Yeah, how about ‘not a snowball’s chance in Hell’?”

The bald man went still. “Selene got shot?”

“Did you really think there was any chance I’d be here if they hadn’t taken her out of the way somehow?” Ace glared at the older man. “After the way she’s protected me from you over the years? Really?”

That brought the frown back. “Now wait a minute. I don’t know what she’s told you—”

“She hasn’t told me anything,” he broke in. “Mom doesn’t talk about you at all, actually. Even when I asked questions straight out. You know what she’d say? ‘Sometimes, things just don’t work out,’ or ‘even grownups make mistakes and sometimes, they make bad mistakes.’ She never even said which of you couldn’t make it work, or who’d made the mistakes.”

He continued after a moment, determined and angrier with every word. “But you know what? It made me think. Everything I know, I remember or figured out for myself. I may not know the details, but I remember how sad she was. All the time. I remember sharing my toys with her, hoping it’d make her feel better. It’d make her smile and play with me, but the sad didn’t leave her eyes until after we left that apartment.”

He remembered a lot more about that time, too. Tense, hushed conversations with his grandparents, held while he was supposed to be in bed. Those made his grandfather frighteningly angry. The way his mother would frown and look worried every time Rick called to talk to him.

Thinking about it made his blood boil. “And just for the record, that little visit you paid to us a few weeks ago, when Steve and Bucky had to stop you from grabbing Mom and Sam had to call the police? Yeah, that didn’t help whatever case you think you have. At all.”

“I was there to try to help you.” Rick wore a scowl, but he passed a meaty hand over his bald scalp restlessly. “To help her, too. I lost my temper, yeah, but she wouldn’t listen. We could have avoided all this if she’d just listened to me.”

“Why should she? It’s not like you’re anything more than a total stranger to either of us, after so long. I heard the whole conversation, by the way, so don’t think you can lie to me about it.”

“Then you heard how she wouldn’t let me see you. You’re my kid, Asa. I know I’m way late, maybe too late, but I’m just trying to take care of you. I can, now. I was a mess before, but now…”

“You know the only reason I’m listening to you now is because you’ve got me locked in a room, right? That doesn’t strike you as really wrong? Creepy? Maybe even, I don’t know, evil? Because it’s definitely illegal. Mom got a restraining order. There is nothing okay about any of this.”

Meaty hands rolled into fists at pudgy sides. “It was not supposed to go like this. You have no idea what you’re talking about, kiddo. Look, just… Let’s start over, huh? I wanted to tell your mother about the people I’m working for, now. We’re doing good things, trying to make the world better, but we need help. We’ve hit a wall, and what’s stopped us is something I know your mother can help us with. You can help, too.”

Ace could only stare at him, wide-eyed, with his jaw hanging. It took him a moment to find his voice again. “Oh…my gods… You drank the Kool-Aid. Do you even know what they’re actually doing? Do you have any clue at all?”

“It’s genetic research, Ace. We’re trying to cure diseases, illnesses that kill people. No one’s found a way yet because they haven’t tried what we’re working on.” He moved a few steps closer, expression turning hopeful. “We’re using magic to—”

“Whoa! No, no, no, you stay over there!” He pulled his legs up onto the cot, flaring his power warningly. “Nope! Genetic research? Really? Do you really believe that? Did you see the…the…the _things_ they used to get me into their car?”

Incredibly, hurt crossed Hamilton’s expression. At least he stopped where he stood. “They’re just experimental byproducts. Harmless leftovers, that’s all. No sense in not using them, though, right?”

 _What…the actual hell…_ “Those ‘harmless leftovers’ are living beings, and they were doing their damnedest to shred three Avengers! They kidnapped me! It’s disgusting to experiment on them just to start with, and then to make them dangerous like that! How can you think that’s okay?”

Just the thought made his skin crawl. “They’re not even the only…things…these people are creating! How do you not Feel all the others right here in this building? Were you in on the collective that’s been threatening me and Mom for the last couple weeks? Did you know this is where those Porcupine Monsters that tried to flatten Brooklyn came from?”

The blank, surprised look on Rick’s pasty face gave all the answer he needed. Shocked and astounded, Ace dared a quick Scan…and what he found made him laugh bitterly. “Oh. I get it, now. You barely have enough power to sense me from across the room.”

He shook his head. “They haven’t told you, and you don’t have enough strength to know anything they don’t want you to know. Holy shit. They’ve just told you everything you want to hear, huh? And you swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker.”

“If you would just listen to me, I’ll explain it so you’ll understand. We’re doing good work, here.”

Ace laughed again. “You’re not doing squat, with your power level. You’re just a tool. Gods, what did Mom ever see in you? No, you’re done. I’m not listening to one more word out of your mouth. Go away.”

At that, actual fear flashed across the older man’s expression. “You don’t know what you’re turning down, buddy. This is the future! You’re being offered a chance to be in on the ground floor, to help make it real! You can’t just throw that away. Let me show you.”

“Yeah, no way. I’m not your ‘buddy’. I want nothing to do with your crazies. In fact, there is nothing you could possibly have to say that I’m interested in.”

“Asa, if you don’t listen to me, they’re going to find ways to make you listen,” Hamilton insisted, lowering his voice. He threw a nervous glance at the window. “You do not want that. I mean it. It won’t be good.”

“Uh-huh, well, if you gave a shit, you’d have thought of that back when you were getting involved with ‘em. Or maybe when they started talking about kidnapping me. Go away, Rick. I’ve got nothing more to say to you.” He dragged himself backward across the cot to lean against the wall, folding his legs in front of him. Arms crossed over his chest, he closed his eyes and refused to respond to anything else.

“Asa! Dammit, kid, they’ve offered us a damn fine situation if you’d just listen!” Rick tried anyway. “Full college for you, guaranteed jobs for both of us, a really good place to live we’d own outright! You could study anything you want, have your own car, anything you’ve ever wanted!”

 _Ah-ha, and now we get to it,_ he thought while the man ranted. _Bet they promised you all that crap for bringing me in, and now I’m fucking it all up by refusing to be used. Nice. Well. You’ll just have to live without the free ride, asshole, because I’m not gonna do anything to make you happy if I can help it. Ugh._

After a few minutes, the door opened again. Ace opened his eyes, but no one actually appeared in the doorway. Instead, a male voice broke into Hamilton’s tirade. “That’s enough. Come out of there.”

Pale blue eyes went comically wide, and the bald man spun around to face the door. “No, wait, just give me—”

The voice took on a ring of authority, and Ace Felt the edges of an esoteric push behind them. “You have had more than enough time. It is clear you have not been forthcoming with us, and you have failed at what you claimed. Come.”

That much bulk sagging in defeat looked a lot like a scoop of ice cream melting in the sun. Rick threw an angry scowl over his shoulder as he moved for the door, but he obeyed the voice. Surprisingly, the door didn’t close immediately.

“Take him to his room, and make sure he stays there. I’ll want to speak with him shortly. You, stay here. We may yet salvage something from this ridiculous mess.”

If he got any response, Ace didn’t hear it over Rick protesting his treatment. That sound faded into distance, and then another man stood in the doorway. Tall with broad shoulders, he wore a tailored suit and had sharply cut dark hair lightly threaded with silver. Probably in his mid-forties, his handsome features held an expression somewhere between concerned and apologetic. Every single layer of protection around Ace lurched to its metaphorical feet, all but vibrating in outrage.

“It seems we owe you an apology, Mister Thomas,” he intoned, and the words held a kind of pressure behind them that made his personal wards harden. “We appear to have been grossly misled as to your circumstances.”

“Not really seeing any circumstances that would make anything that’s happened tonight even remotely okay, never mind legal,” Ace answered cautiously. The way the wards reacted said this man held an edge of danger Rick hadn’t. The careful press of power backing his words suggested he had far more power than Rick, maybe as much as Ace, and he knew how to use it. “No matter what kind of lies he told you.”

The stranger sighed faintly, as though disappointed, and pursed his lips for a moment. Ace could Feel the feather-light touch of power, even through his layers of protections. “Well. I shall have to go and deal with him before we can continue, but how if we started again? My name is David. David Kirkpatrick, CEO of Empirical Pharmaceuticals. We’ve been aware of you and your mother for several years, now, though only by reputation. Your mother is a difficult woman to locate.”

 _Only if you’re trying to track her magically,_ Ace thought. He did his best to keep the disgusted suspicion off his face but didn’t feel sure he’d succeeded. _I wonder who you were tracking, though. Mom, or The Wolf?_

In the end, he supposed, it didn’t really matter. Either way, they’d still kidnapped him, he still sat in a strange room against his will, and he still faced a strange man who apparently wanted a response. He swallowed carefully. “I wouldn’t know. She’s always been there for me.”

Perfectly-groomed eyebrows rose and fell. Surprised? Maybe. “I see. Well. We had been given to understand that she has neglected your talents. Or hoarded them, perhaps, while also ignoring her own potential. Ignored the responsibilities talents such as ours confer on their bearers.”

 _What a load of bullshit. He’s either stupid or lying to me._ The insistent press of power against his protections implied the latter, really. Ace couldn’t help the derisive snort that escaped him. “Then Hamilton’s really lied to you a lot. Not that I’m surprised. He never stuck around long enough to find out, even when he bothered to show up. You might not know it, but we haven’t seen him in ten years. He doesn’t know jack about us.”

The eyebrows did their jump again. “I see. Then I must apologize again. And if you’ll excuse me, I shall go and deal with him, then return to you. I think we have a great deal to discuss.”

“Noticing I don’t really have any choice.”

“There is always a choice, young man.”

Ace sniffed. “I’d like to go home, then. That’s all I want out of this entire experience. You’re gonna just let me go?”

“Well.” Even the man’s reluctance had an oily sheen to it. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, just yet. You have seen our secret facilities, after all, and the byproducts of our work here. I realize you’ve come here under stressful circumstances and that we’ve acted on very poor information, but we do have to protect our industrial secrets. There are, at least, nondisclosure agreements we’ll need you to sign before we can release you. Our original offer stands, though, if you’ll permit me to give you the details. You could be a great help to us.”

“Industrial secrets,” the young man repeated wryly. “Right. You go deal with Ricky-boy. I’ll just sit here. Since, you know, I haven’t got any choice about it.”

Maybe ten minutes after Kirkpatrick left, the door opened again. This time, a ratty little man in a rumpled suit walked in, already removing his tie. He stuffed the strip of cloth in his pants pocket as the door snapped shut behind him.

“Okay, kid. I think you’re smart enough to get that this can only go one of two ways.” He folded his arms across his chest. “You can cooperate, do as you’re told, and everything’ll be fine. I think you’ll probably even like what they have planned for you. You’ve got a pretty sweet deal coming your way if you’re good.”

Ace raised an eyebrow, cautious. This looked like a ‘no more Mister Nice Guy’ scenario. “Oh, I’m sure. And if I’m not a good boy?”

A shrug of narrow shoulders. “Then I’ll just have to persuade you. Thing is, I’m not as good with talking as Mister Kirkpatrick. I’m better with my hands.”

“Okay, yeah, I figured we’d get to that eventually.” _Mom’s gonna be so pissed when she gets here. She didn’t want me to have to defend myself like this. Stupid, evil morons. They don’t have any idea what they’ve provoked._

He dropped his feet back to the floor, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Here’s the thing. I know what’s going on here, and I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what you people want me to do. Sorry not sorry, but I’m not interested in helping. Actually, no, I’m not even sorry I’m not sorry. You’re working for some seriously evil fuckers, and I want nothing to do with them. So I guess we’re going with the hard way, huh?”

While he spoke, he Reached out to test the man’s defenses. Touch would have made it much easier for him, but he really didn’t want this guy that close. He wore a paper-thin ward of some kind that didn’t even react when Ace pried it up and slipped underneath.

Almost immediately, he recognized the guy for a brawler despite his small size. Scars littered his skin, bone calluses held old breaks together, and his liver barely hung on in the face of probably a lifetime of drinking way too much. The urge to help poked him in the back of the head, a deeply ingrained habit even here. Except he hadn’t Reached out to this guy to help anything.

It felt entirely wrong, preparing to do this. Teaching him to do it had upset his mother, he’d been able to Sense it even as she explained the principle. It’d bothered her enough that he’d decided he never wanted to use it, but she’d been adamant that he know that he could protect himself. She’d insisted for as long as he could remember that he had better never throw the first punch of a fight, but he should always throw the last one. The thugs that had attacked him weeks ago had caught him off-guard and confused, but now…

“You really want to take the deal, though, kid,” Ratty Guy insisted, shaking his head as he pulled his jacket off. “Because this is really gonna hurt. Figure I’m doin’ you a favor, though. You get a taste of how it’ll be if you don’t behave, you make a better decision, and everything’s good from then on.”

He started forward, and Ace shook his head. “No, I really don’t see it that way. I do think you should stay over there, though.” With a sigh, he flexed his power, feeling the tissue under his Touch go completely inert. “Pretty sure you don’t want to get any closer to me, anyway.”

Ratty Guy froze, clutching at his chest and throat. His eyes widened, bugging out a little. He huffed out a tiny breath, and Ace blocked a few more muscle signals. For a long moment, the little fighter struggled to inhale again while the young man merely watched, keeping his expression deliberately blank while his skin crawled with revulsion.

At last, unable even to make a sound, Ratty Guy staggered backward toward the door, turning at the last second to pound on its surface. It opened just as he collapsed against it, and he fell through the opening. Someone dragged him the rest of the way out, and Ace released him with relief as the door closed again. Let them think he couldn’t do anything out of line of sight. Holding a person’s lungs hostage like that felt disgusting.

 _Please just leave me alone, now,_ he thought, staring at the floor while he waited for the nasty feeling to go away. _Just…argue with each other until Mom gets here with the Avengers and the police, or something. Ugh._

Naturally, because prisoner in an evil lair, he didn’t get what he wanted. He recognized the scar-faced man who walked through the door perhaps half an hour later as the same one Bucky said had sat with Rick outside school. He stood much taller than Ratty Guy, and someone had given him much better protections. Ace’s first, instinctive probe butted up against a fairly solid wall of power. It even Felt like whoever’d set it had a much better grasp of what they’d done.

It didn’t matter very much. Ace knew immediately that he still had more strength.

 _Gonna have to let him touch me this time, though,_ he thought as Scar began rolling his shirtsleeves up. He hadn’t worn either suit coat or tie when he walked into the cell. _Gotta keep them guessing about what I’m really capable of. Touch’ll make it easier, anyway._

“You should at least hear the details of what you are being offered,” Scar suggested casually with a faint hint of some Eastern European accent. “What they will ask of you is very little compared to what you will receive in exchange.”

“I’ve heard everything I need to hear,” he insisted as the man stalked closer. “You really don’t want to do what you’re about to try to do. Just stay over there. I’m not helping your bosses do what I know they’re doing. I don’t care about their reasons. It’s all bullshit.”

“Well, my boss is going to be very sorry to hear that.” He reached out to wrap a big, hard hand around the younger man’s wrist. “Now stand up and take your medici—”

With the touch, Ace punched hard straight through the wall of defensive power and wrapped his own awareness around Scar’s vulnerable lungs. Just a thought paralyzed all the muscles and other tissues involved in breathing. The enforcer’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and he cocked his free hand back.

Heart pounding, Ace swallowed against the urge to throw up and locked down on the signals to the muscles in both the man’s arms. Doing his best to project far more calm than he actually felt, he shook the suddenly lax grip from his wrist. Scar’s eyes had widened again, and he’d paled a little.

“I’m being nice, right now.” He peered up into the enforcer’s face. “Because if I can do what I’m doing right now, stopping your lungs, making your arms numb? If I can do that this easily, you might want to think about what I could do to your heart if I felt like it.”

Fear flashed, stark and raw, across Scar’s face. He turned and stumbled for the door, which opened before he got to it. Whoever stood on the other side closed it as soon as he fell through, and Ace reeled his own power back, releasing the hapless thug. Nausea rose again, and he gritted his teeth against it. He refused to let the watchers on the other side of that window see anything at all they might interpret as an opening. As weakness.

So he swung his legs up onto the cot and lay down, rolling to face the blank wall. Maybe if they thought he’d exhausted himself, they’d leave him alone. Maybe they’d think he didn’t have the power they needed.

But the door suddenly _slammed_ open, and a series of rapid, angry footsteps announced someone new had entered the cell. He got only half-turned, hadn’t even gotten an eye on the newcomer, when a hand closed on his upper arm and pulled with surprising strength. Hauled off the cot entirely, he found himself gasping, slammed against the wall so hard the air left his lungs before he had a chance to focus on his new assailant.

A very tall woman, dark hair cut short around her face, held his arm in a bruising grip. She pulled him forward a little, then slammed him back against the wall once more. His head bounced against the brick, rattling his teeth. Pain bloomed in his cheek without warning. He only registered she’d hit him as a fist connected with his stomach. Her hold on his arm kept him upright.

Desperately, he sucked in a long breath while she glared at him. The spreading warmth in his cheek told him he’d have a spectacular bruise there, and he could smell blood, taste it. He couldn’t tell whether it came from his nose or his cheek. It didn’t matter. He threw his Senses at his attacker, testing her defenses.

Patchwork power wound around her, wrapping over and over to create a rubbery shell of protection. He recognized that power. She’d gotten her Warding straight from the Collective that had threatened him and his mother for the last couple of weeks. The layers would make it more difficult, but he knew how to deal with this, too. And she continued to touch him. Glaring right back, he got to work.

“You are a child,” she spat at him. “Making foolish decisions when the adults around you know what is best for you. You were given the courtesy of a choice, a chance to show yourself grown, but you wasted it. Now, you’ll be treated as the child you are. Willful, misbehaving children deserve punishment. This is yours.”

“Lady, if this is the way you treat kids, someone needs to call Family Services about you.”

That earned him a contemptuous slap across the mouth. “Disrespectful children will be taught respect.”

“By beating the crap outta me?” He huffed a thin laugh as the drill of his power sought one of the poor joins in the patchwork that made up the top layer of her ward. “Historically, that doesn’t really make respect. Kinda the opposite.”

“You will do as you are told,” she insisted. “And you will continue to be punished until you obey. Your situation is very simple, now.”

“‘The beatings will continue until morale improves’?” he quipped, searching for another weak seam. “They hang those signs in the office around here? I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be a joke, lady. Not supposed to take it seriously.”

Her knee hit him in the gut, driving the air out of him again. It didn’t affect his grasp on his power, though, and he found the weakness he’d sought even as he straightened again. Her hand tightened on his arm, and he gritted his teeth.

“The sooner you cooperate, the sooner the pain will end.” She leaned, and his fingers began to tingle. “Very, very simple.”

“The thing about that is that what I do works best when I want to do it. Doesn’t work so great if I’m forced into it. So what you’re doing right now? Not really helping your cause.”

“Adults will decide what’s best. Children are meant to obey, seen and not heard.”

The seam in her Ward gave suddenly, and he spun the thread of his power around her. To his surprise, she had power of her own, but hadn’t bothered putting up her own protections. She’d actually put all of her faith and safety into the defenses her apparent bosses had created for her. Too bad for her, he’d learned how to deal with their power thanks to Watching them messing with his mother for the last while.

“Man, lady,” he said as her eyes widened with realization. She’d clearly Sensed his Touch. “Your childhood must have sucked. I’m almost sorry about this.”

He yanked the thread and killed the signals from her brain to all of her muscles except her heart. She dropped like a puppet with cut strings. Her head bounced off the floor a little harder than he’d hoped, making him wince, but he slid along the wall to collapse back onto the cot. He ached all over, and his cheek stung.

“Someone might want to come and get her,” he suggested to the window. “She won’t last long like this.”

The door opened, and Kirkpatrick stormed through, eyes wide. “What’s going on in here?” he demanded.

Ace got ready to fight again, but the suited man didn’t even look at him. He stalked across the room to haul the woman up by one arm. She flopped uselessly, helplessly, so he dragged her across the room to the door.

“I specifically ordered that no one come in here!” the businessman snapped at whoever waited outside the opening. He passed the woman through, and Ace relaxed his power. “I don’t even want to know what the hell you morons thought you were doing. Bring me a first aid kit, and then get the hell out of here!”

It took a few minutes, but at last the man turned with the kit in hand and allowed the door to close behind him. He appeared equal parts angry, horrified, and apologetic, and Ace didn’t buy it for a moment. Anyone who really meant what he was expressing wouldn’t also be applying the heavy, insistent press of power he could Feel against his Wards.

Briefly, he wondered what kind of idiots he was dealing with, that they knew he held power but didn’t assume he could Sense theirs at work.

“I cannot apologize enough for their behavior,” Kirkpatrick broke into his thoughts. “But I am truly sorry for what they’ve done. They were not supposed to come in here until I’d returned. Here, let me—”

“I’d rather do it myself, thanks,” Ace broke in. The idea of letting this guy touch him made his skin crawl.

Thankfully, the older man set the kit on the cot and stepped back. Keeping half his attention on where Kirkpatrick stood, he dug for what he would need to at least stop the bleeding from his cheek. He could Heal it, even on himself, but he didn’t want to use his power for that unless he absolutely had to. Here in their place of power, he could still access more if he needed it, but it wouldn’t be clean power, and it’d be harder for him to collect than he really wanted to have to deal with.

Conserving power meant just applying antiseptic and antibiotic ointment. To his surprise, he also found a chemical cold-pack in the kit. When he’d finished with the thin cut along his cheekbone, he cracked the capsule inside the pack and applied the coolness to his face where the bruising had already begun throbbing. Using the mirrored window to see his injuries made the whole process go quickly. After five minutes or so, he settled back onto the cot with the ice pack on his face and a wary eye for the older man who hadn’t moved or interrupted the entire time.

“Okay, so they weren’t in here on your orders.” Kirkpatrick shifted, betraying the surprise he didn’t show on his face. He hadn’t expected Ace to restart the conversation. “If you say so. You gotta know by now I’m not gonna do what you want. And I’m not gonna be alone here for very much longer, either, even Rick’d know that.”

The small, creepy smile that curved the older man’s lips sent a chill up his spine. “You expect your mother to come for you.”

 _I think I’m gonna just leave the Avengers out of this._ That expression made him even more wary. _I don’t know who’d come with her, anyway, and the less these idiots know, the better for us._ But he nodded. “I know she will.”

“Excellent.” The smile grew slightly. “Such a strong bond between you. We had counted on that, you see.”

Ace only shrugged. Anyone who knew anything about him knew that he and his mother were a team. His entire life, she’d always been the one thing he could count on. Anyone who knew him knew that. Probably anyone who only knew _of_ him would know that.

Kirkpatrick tucked his hands into his pockets, smile going smug. “You should know, we are everywhere.”

“Oh, here we go with the Kool-Aid.”

“We have believers in every layer of government, young man. That includes the courts. Police. We are everywhere.”

“So either you’re Hydra, or you’re taking your cue from them.”

That garnered a faint, derisive snort. “Their fall was inevitable from the beginning. They had too little vision, their goals far too small. They grew too bloated from feeding on their miserable little conquests. We grew within their apparatus, true, but they never realized our true worth. The Secret Empire has larger goals, Asa. Goals that you and your mother have the opportunity to play a part in reaching.”

As he spoke, the pressure of his magic increased on the outsides of Ace’s Wards. If it kept up like that, went on getting stronger, he didn’t know if his power would hold against it. He’d never actually tested himself against someone who truly meant him harm. Someone who sounded increasingly unhinged, the longer he listened.

“You realize you sound completely insane, right?” he blurted, then winced. _Crap. Don’t feed the trolls, you genius!_

“You haven’t yet moved into the real world. It’s understandable you would cling to your clean, pretty ideals. We all do, when we are young.” His hands came out of his pockets, folding primly together in front of him. The smugness became cool, boardroom certainty, and his power surged. “But ideals do not pay bills, do not put food on tables or roofs over heads. They do not make real, tangible change.”

He pushed again with his power, and Ace’s head began to ache. “Your mother will understand. Our people in the world can either smooth her way, and yours, or make things very difficult. We can help with her health, with your schooling, with anything either of you could ever need or want. Or we can make all of that harder. All we require is assistance. She will understand what’s best for the both of you.”

“You…uh…you don’t know very much about my mother, do you?” Because the very idea of her folding to the ‘incentives’ this guy had just outlined? Hilarious. This woman, who had imposed strict rules and conditions for the use of power on both herself and her son? Whose friends included Steve Rogers, the biggest idealist in the freakin’ world, a _blazing_ example of just how ideals most certainly can work in the real world? Yeah, never happen.

Except that Kirkpatrick’s smile turned amused. “We’ve followed your mother’s work for a very long time. We’re quite familiar with her. Our attempts to contact her failed until very recently, though. Discovering you was a very happy bonus.”

Meaning they only knew her magically. If they believed that the strictly practical way she used it, together with the strongly neutral sense of her that marked it as hers, could let them know her at all… Well, let them make that mistake. Ace knew better.

“Yeah, well, you’re not starting out very well, kidnapping her kid.”

“She will understand. You’ll help her.”

“Uh, no. I’m…pretty sure I’ve made it clear I’m not helping you nutjobs.”

“Oh yes, that’s quite clear. But you’ll help your mother, and you’ll obey her decisions like the good son that you are.” The insistent press of power against his wards suddenly roared into a bladed whirlwind, pounding and slashing at his protections. “So you can help your mother by helping her to see the correct path.”

“She already knows,” Ace ground out between clenched teeth. Abruptly, his mother’s talisman grew warm against his skin as her wards slid through his to stand against the onslaught. Between the attack and his power. Between the attacker and him. He had to keep his teeth clenched against the relieved laughter that bubbled up in him at that. “And there’s nothing I’ll ever say that’ll change her mind about it.”

“Perhaps not. But I think you’ll try as hard as you can. After all, we don’t want her to get hurt any more than she already has, do we?” The smug smile all but dripped slime. “And I’m certain she doesn’t want to see her boy get hurt, either, hm? Do you see? Something for everyone.”

 _Not for you, you smarmy bastard!_ He forced a shrug, pulling his legs back up on the cot. “Maybe. I guess we’ll see when she gets here, huh?” _She’s already here, asshole, and she’s going to rip you a brand new one when she gets hold of you. Your power’s touched hers. She’s got your scent, now. You’re gonna wish you hadn’t done all this._

In the next second, though, he Felt his mother’s power swell beyond what the talisman should have been capable of. The rage that came with it seemed nearly palpable. And then, very suddenly, it became palpable. The talismanic wards rushed outward, slamming into Kirkpatrick and smothering his power as it physically pressed him backward, across the room all the way to the wall. Ace watched with his mouth hanging open as the older man struggled, sparks of power flickering in and out of existence even as he fought to raise his hands.

Very faintly, audible only to those who knew how to Hear, the howl of a wolf slipped through the room.

 _Oh. Oh, shit. I knew she’d be angry, but…this…_ For the first time since he’d awoken in this cell, Ace felt fear. Fear not for himself, but for his mother. She had told him about it, but she had never manifested this level of power in his entire lifetime. _She’s broken out The Wolf. Holy shit, Mom, please play it safe. Please._

As if hearing the thought, the lights suddenly flickered…and went to red. Somewhere outside the cell, an alarm began shrilling. Kirkpatrick stilled, turning his head to stare at Ace.

The younger man couldn’t help a very slightly hysterical laugh. “She’s here. Still want to talk to her? ‘Cause I get the feeling she’s very interested in meeting you.” 


	15. Chapter 15

_“Wait, Steve,”_ Selene called out as they advanced down yet another long corridor. Steve froze, scanning the area ahead of him before glancing over his shoulder. _“There’s an energy tripwire a little ahead of you. Give me a second to look it over.”_

She padded forward silently, ethereal nose twitching and ears tilted forward as she extended her Senses to work out just what the thin line of power she’d caught was intended to do. The clumsy knot at one end made her want to snort in amusement. She found nothing at all amusing about the trap that lay beyond that point, though. If the knot pulled loose, it’d yank open the valve on some sort of combustible gas and send a spark up to ignite it. The corridor would fill with fire.

Except that she liked her friends exactly as they already stood. They definitely did not need crisping. So she threaded power through and around that sorry excuse for a knot, locking it up solid, and then anchored the resulting bundle to the floor right there. Snipping the line of power that ran across the floor caused it to evaporate like smoke. The maker hadn’t even bothered to set a Warning to let them know if someone tampered with their trap.

_“You know, for a fairly organized group doing what they’ve been doing, they’re kind of stupid,”_ she commented when she turned back to face her group. _“I’m starting to worry they want someone to come in.”_

“Safe to move on?” Steve asked.

She paused to sweep the corridor. _“At least until the intersection down there. It’s just that all the traps and ambushes we’ve encountered so far haven’t had any backup. No alarms to trip. They’re either stupid or tragically bad at wielding their power. But they’ve created creatures and planned the ambush that kidnapped Ace. I feel like we’re missing something.”_

Wanda had held the firefighters in the fire station immobile in their beds while the SHIELD team took them into custody. The first sublevel proved to be set up like an office building, complete with open cubicles, enclosed offices, and even a server room. Steve, Bucky, Natasha, and Selene had bulldozed through three squad-sized ambushes. Selene had disarmed or disabled two magically-set traps and helped Natasha disarm three mundane traps concealed with power.

Stark, Sam, Wanda, Pietro, and Clint had taken on the second sublevel at the same time. It’d turned out to be a largely-empty barracks, appearing almost like a college dorm. They’d dealt with three esoteric booby-traps, two mundane traps, and only two ambushes. So far, anyway. With so many closed rooms to check, they had to move more slowly than the other team.

“How’s Ace doing?” Bucky asked tightly.

Selene hadn’t released that thread since they’d walked through the door upstairs. Her son made an angry, frightened, faintly confused feeling in the back of her mind. She’d caught a flash of sharp pain from him a little while ago, but it didn’t seem too bad, so she’d held to her composure and controlled the impulse to just rush to him by the thinnest of threads. At the question, she gave the bit of her mind holding the link to him more attention.

_“He seems all right, for the moment.”_ Considering, she prodded a little at the wards she could Feel around him. _“He’s a little hurt and a lot angry, but his protections are still in place and don’t Feel as if anyone’s really…stressed them…too…much…”_

As she spoke, something changed. She got a strong wave of revulsion from Ace, and her Wards tightened. Hardened. Something had gone wrong. More wrong.

_“I think we need to get to him quickly, though,”_ she added, unable to keep her tension from bleeding into the words. _“Something just changed for the worse. I’m not sure what, but—”_

Pressure, the steadily increasing press of someone else’s power on Ace’s protections, reverberated along her link. It set her hackles to rising immediately. A faint growl escaped her as she turned to stare down the corridor. _“They’re trying to break him now. His wards and mine are still up, but I can’t tell how strong this person is. We need to get to him. Now.”_

“Bravo team, what’s your status?” Steve asked as they moved down the corridor, picking up their pace.

Selene couldn’t wear a radio and so didn’t hear the reply, but it must have been acceptable. She moved ahead, sweeping for more traps as she went, while Steve answered, “Good. We need to move. Rendezvous at the landing to level three as fast as you can. Sounds like they’ve started in on Ace.”

They’d just stepped into the stairwell that led down to the third level when she felt her talisman sublimate Ace’s wards. The pressure on them jumped exponentially, turning sharp. Tearing. Someone meant to break through.

Protective rage swelled within her, and she allowed it full rein of her power. Her ethereal fur stood on end, and she snarled as power all but exploded outward in a wave of blue fire intent on quashing the force that threatened her son. Clumsy wards, traps, and Concealments scattered within the radius of her power collapsed under the onslaught. Dimly, she heard an alarm begin sounding.

“Selene!” Steve stood at her shoulder, tense. “What’s going on?”

The immediate threat against Ace had diminished to faint, futile sparks of terrified power that she smothered as soon as they tried to manifest. Even so, she could Feel other powers, other sources of danger, moving nearby. She Felt a sudden certainty that if she did not reach her pup very shortly, the tides of this meeting would turn against them.

_“We’re out of time! Follow now!”_ She threw herself forward, down the stairs. Bucky cursed and reached for her, but his gloved hand passed right through her ethereal flank. She understood his concern, though. It must have looked like the desperate charge of an overwrought mother. He could have no way to know that she meant to protect all of them.

Thankfully, when she hit the landing, Stark and his team had just come through the door. She could continue the headlong flight and get protections around everyone at once. Ignoring the startled curses and worried questions, she wove lattices of protection, the magical equivalent of kevlar.

Each Weaving, she tailored to the wearer and tuned against the specific energies she could Feel permeating the place. She hadn’t done this before arriving because they’d hoped to avoid a major confrontation and she’d wanted to conserve the power. Now, she wished she’d taken the time and damn the energy cost. Weaving this sort of protection on the fly taxed her in ways she hadn’t experienced since her apprenticeship at her own mother’s knee.

Sam, Steve, and Bucky all carried the talismans she’d given them. She anchored the newest power weaves in their totems, giving them a little more strength and stability than the others would have. Even so, the new protections would guard against simple hexes, curses, and power blasts for at least a while. How much damage they could absorb would depend entirely on what they were exposed to, and they certainly wouldn’t prevent physical damage or the threat of much larger magics, but they would help.

Then she hit the door into the third sublevel, and she had no more attention to spare. A group of people stood a short distance down the corridor beyond. She had only a moment to register that half of them wore the black tactical gear she expected, but the other half wore some kind of ridiculous half-robes in deep crimson and green. In a flash, she barreled into them, lashing out with teeth, claws, and whips of power.

They tumbled out of her way like bowling pins.

The Avengers piled in behind her, putting down those who had managed to keep their feet, and making sure those she’d knocked down stayed that way. It ended in less than a second. Steve ordered Natasha and Pietro to get the group locked down, then catch up, all without the group so much as pausing for more than a few seconds. Selene led them forward, using Ace’s emotional turmoil as a beacon.

“So, someone tell me, is Samantha still with us, or are we following a slavering werebeast?” Iron Man asked. He sounded tense, as though covering for some emotion he didn’t want to admit to.

She found she couldn’t blame him. This form had only teeth and claws for physical weapons, and few people had seen a wolf on the hunt in this age. For all the violence the Avengers saw semi-regularly, a wolf’s hunt still would not seem a gentle process.

_“I’m still with you, Stark. We’ve run out of time. Someone attempted to break Ace’s protections using brutality. I can hold them off for a while, but there are Forces moving now which pose a greater threat than we expected. We must get to them before they complete whatever they’ve set in motion. The time for sneaking has passed. Now, pay attention. There is a large group ahead.”_

They careened around a corner to find perhaps twenty people, some in the weird half-robes, some in tactical gear, and some in lab coats, gathered in an anxious cluster around a window. Two black-clad, armed men stood at a door beside the window, slamming against it in a clear effort to get through. Selene didn’t bother suppressing her snarl. She held that door against them, and her pup waited on the other side.

First, clear the corridor.

The two at the door turned, wide-eyed, to fumble for their weapons. As she threw herself at them, Steve’s shield spun past, bounced off a pair of heads and the wall, and vanished back over her shoulder. Sam and Bucky’s guns fired almost rhythmically, dropping body after body with the blue tranquilizer pellets the Avengers used in lieu of bullets when they went up against human opponents. Repulsor blasts knocked people back and away, mostly ending in unconsciousness for the recipients, given the confined quarters.

The light of Wanda’s power – and she really should have a conversation with the young woman about all that wasted energy – wreathed among them, tangling feet here and wrapping around a throat there, pulling at straps and knocking weapons aside. Or maybe that was Pietro, who moved in a blur through the crowd. An arrow hissed by her ear a moment later, but her attention lay on a robed fool in the other direction and she didn’t see where it went.

Then the hall held only Selene, Avengers, and unconscious bodies. She modified the shape of the power she still maintained in the other room. _“The door will open, now. Ace is in there with his attacker.”_

Bucky slammed the door open, but Selene beat him through with a single, long leap. The two super-soldiers followed on her heels, Sam immediately behind them.

“Mom!” Ace launched himself off a small cot in the corner of the room to throw his arms around her neck. She tucked her chin over his shoulder, pulling him in tight. The scent of his blood renewed her rage.

_“You’re hurt. What happened?”_ she demanded with a snarl. Pulling back, she examined his battered face.

He aimed a glare over her shoulder at the man she could Feel still cowering under her power across the room. “Some of his lackeys decided I needed softening up. One of ‘em used fists to try to convince me to cooperate. It didn’t work out so well for any of them.”

Her heart sank. She had never wanted him to have to fight. _“Oh, Ace. Are you all right?”_

“Close enough. Left the bruises and stuff to conserve power, in case I needed it. I’m probably going to completely lose my shit when we get home, but I’m okay for now.”

In that moment, pride in him filled her. He’d have every right to be a gibbering mess. Instead, he’d protected himself, apparently refused to cooperate when they got violent, and remained at least outwardly calm even now. She dropped her chin over his shoulder to pull him back into a tight hug.

_“I’m proud of you, son.”_ She allowed herself a moment just to hold him as his arms tightened around her neck. That moment had to stay short, though. Reluctantly, she nudged him. _“Now, Sam’s going to take you back to the Tower. You can—”_

He leaned away a little, frowning. “No! Mom, no! I want to stay and help! They’re…I’ve sat here Feeling all the crazy shit they have going on, and I can’t just leave! There’s crap down there I know I can help with. Please, Mom, let me stay. I’ll be careful, and I’ll stay back out of the actual fighting, but please!”

She drew back to stare into his face. It held fear, of course, but also a determination she’d never seen in him before. That determination, she knew intimately. She felt it every time she noticed a new problem brewing somewhere within her territory.

“We’ve still got a hell of a fight ahead of us,” Bucky growled from where he stood on one side of the cowering Practitioner.

“We haven’t got the coverage to keep him safe, Selene,” Steve added. She could Feel him standing on the other side of their prisoner.

“I swear, I will stay out of the way!” Ace insisted. “I can help! I’ll stay under cover, hang back where you’ve already cleared, I promise! I can keep you guys healed and help deal with what I can Feel festering down there. It’s gross, and I’ll be way better at that than you, Mom!”

_“Then meditate. Right here, right now. But you’re going to do something new.”_ She knew he had it in him, had been ready for this for some time. If he really wanted to stay, he’d find it for himself.

_“If you want to stay and fight, you’ll have to prove to me that you can keep yourself safe. I can’t do that and cover the rest of the team, too. Start out like usual. Go In, deep, to where your power lives. Once you have it, I want you to take hold of your Center. Tight. Get hold of that, anchor yourself to it, and then come Out, and bring your power with you. Out, and carry that power along. Now this is important, okay? You have to keep hold of your center, never let go for any reason, not even for a moment. Understand?”_

He blinked at her, swallowed hard, and nodded. She nodded back. _“Do it quickly. You have a few minutes while I deal with the asshole behind me.”_

“Oh. Davie.” Stark’s voice sounded from the doorway. “What a complete surprise to see you here. Not. Hah, Pepper owes me a movie night!”

She turned then. Stark stood in the doorway with his faceplate up, grinning viciously while Steve and Bucky stood on either side of a man in an expensive suit. At sight of him, all the rage came flooding back. She had to channel it somewhere, or she’d wind up killing the lowlife. Not what needed to happen. So she fed the energy into her form, doubling her size as she released a very satisfying snarl.

Stark snapped his faceplate down as Steve and Bucky each took a startled step backward.

_“You,”_ she growled, and it sounded vicious. Good. Let it. The man cowered against the wall, as if he wanted to melt through it. _“You dared to Touch my pup! Mine!”_

“I-I didn’t know!” The wail didn’t become a man of his age and stature. Dignity destroyed, he looked like a well-dressed, doddering fool. “Please, we only knew you had power! We didn’t know you… A-About this! N-No one said!”

_“Ignorance does not excuse your actions!”_ She snapped her teeth together, inches from his face. _“You used your power, the gift given to you, to kidnap a child! To do harm! To attack that very same child, when your persuasive magic did not sway his mind! You would have forced him, then used him to force me! You are vile, a stain on the Earth! Your betrayal disgusts me! You are not worthy of the gifts you have been given!”_

Behind her, a bloom of power told her that Ace had successfully followed the instructions she’d given. The way the light in the room changed, going slightly green, suggested he’d made a show of it. The suited man’s eyes snapped to some point over her shoulder, then widened in horror as he shrank back even further. Steve and Bucky both widened their eyes, too, surprised. The sniper even muttered a faint, “What the hell…”

Their reactions confirmed what she Sensed: Ace had tapped into his Spirit and brought it out to wield like the weapon it could be.

Snapping her teeth in his face recalled their prisoner’s attention to her. _“And now you see your true folly,”_ she snarled. _“You acted as if I would leave my pup ignorant and defenseless. Know, though, that you are now both. Your power will never respond to your Call again, nor the Call of any other. I leave it intact but unreachable, to remind you of what your selfish ignorance has cost you.”_

As she spoke, she tightened the power she’d held on him until it had formed a shell around the core of his power. She applied her sigil to the resultant esoteric packet as both seal and warn-off to anyone who might attempt to free him. No one reputable would touch it with a ten-foot cattle prod now, and the disreputable would find it a difficult and dangerous obstacle to tackle. More than he could ever make it worth to risk.

Eyes back on Ace, he shuddered…and fainted.

“Selene!” Steve barked, a hint of reprimand in his voice.

She snorted. _“He pissed himself and fainted. I didn’t hurt him. He won’t be able to hurt anyone else with magic, though. I locked that down tight for the rest of his life. Someone should tie him up.”_

With that, she turned to see her son. He sat on the edge of the cot, eyes still closed, with literal wings of power limned in green fire folded around him. Above his head, the green light formed the head and neck of a bird. By the heavy, scythe-like beak, a raven. She rumbled a chuckle. Appropriate, for the son of The Wolf to manifest as a wolf’s companion, a wolf-bird.

Steve moved up beside her. “What is that?” he breathed over the sound of Bucky’s zip ties securing the prisoner.

_“It’s a manifestation of his Spirit, like the wolf for me. He’ll be very, very tired when this is all over, but it means he’ll be able to keep himself safe tonight. And fight for himself. It’ll make healing you guys a great deal easier for him, too, no matter how far you all spread out.”_ She waved her tail, pleased. _“You’ve just witnessed the birth of a new Healer-Guardian. He’s the only one in existence that I know of.”_

Ace opened his eyes, which glowed the same green as the power around him. “Mom?”

She paced forward to touch her nose, cool and solid, to his cheek. _“So proud of you. You’re ready, son. Let’s go teach the rest of these idiots that they’ve messed with the wrong family.”_

His smile at that lit the room brighter than his power. If it looked just this side of bloodthirsty, well, who could blame him?

* * *

While the floors above had been all but deserted, this one seemed packed. A new group or two of enemy combatants stood behind every corner they turned. Scarlet Witch kept one of her forcefields up in front of them as they went, guarding them from bullets. The occasional blue spark threaded through the red light of her power, though, suggesting pretty strongly that Selene had done something to bolster the barrier.

Bucky strode along beside Falcon, flanking Steve, who led the way with his shield. Hawkeye moved back and forth across the corridors behind them, picking off what he could as they moved. Black Widow and Iron Man kept an eye out behind them, taking out anything that tried to come at them from behind.

Thus far, the fight had proven easy. The sniper had gone through combat like it dozens, maybe even hundreds of times. His eye sought a target, confirmed, and his fingers pulled triggers to put the target down over and over again. Between their SHIELD-created, Tony-improved tranquilizer rounds and the tight quarters, their opponents didn’t really have very much chance of either success or escape.

So the conflict thus far really didn’t require very much of his attention. Most of his mind remained on the pair they’d all formed up around, mother and son glowing brightly in their midst. Pretty much since they’d pulled Ace out of that cell, Selene had kept up a running stream of instructions to her kid that didn’t make very much sense to Bucky.

A lot of what she’d said sounded almost like the continuation of a conversation already in progress. The few things he understood tallied with things she’d told him, or said in his presence, so it figured what she had to tell Ace now had to do with training she’d given him before. He felt fairly sure that it all had to do with controlling this new green-glowy bird-thing he’d done, and how best to use it in this situation.

Then the young man said something that garnered his full attention.

“But that applies to you, too.” His voice had gone weirdly two-tonal since he’d started glowing, making it difficult to read properly, but the sniper thought it sounded worried. “It has to. You’ve held the Wolf a long time already, tonight. Mom, please, you have to promise me. As soon as everything’s done here, let it go and rest. Please.”

A long silence followed. Bucky took down four more robed clowns before she answered. _“As soon as I know there is no more need for me here, yes. I will let it go. You can meet me back at the Tower. Now, pay attention, this is important…”_

What followed lost him completely, with no frame of reference to work from, but he continued to mull that little snippet of conversation over as they advanced through the complex. Something about Selene appearing in this form had worried Ace. Badly, if what he’d heard gave any indication. Back at the Tower, Selene had said the glowing animal thing required ‘a dangerous amount of strength and energy’. He’d meant to ask about that but hadn’t had a chance.

Now, he wished he had.

The area they fought through opened up, the corridors widening, and the team spaced out a little more. It made it harder for Scarlet Witch to keep them all covered, but Cap could throw the shield more easily. Widow and Hawkeye had an easier time getting in their shots around everyone else.

Unfortunately, it also gave the asshats they faced more room to work.

Engaged with a group of about twenty, the Avengers pressed forward into an intersection. At first, the crossing corridor appeared empty. They couldn’t really split off to check for certain, of course, not in the middle of dealing with one group already. It could wait a couple more minutes…

…except it really couldn’t. On some signal he didn’t catch, doors on either side of them popped open. Dozens of black-clad or robed figures poured out into the corridor, surrounding them on three sides. The fight got real hairy, real fast. Bucky felt an impact in his left thigh, felt the tearing burn of a gunshot wound and realized that leg wouldn’t hold him for much longer.

“Ow! Shit, I’m hit!” he snarled, still firing into the melee. “Left—” But as quickly as it had started, the pain ended. Just disappeared. He couldn’t spare a glance down to see what the hell had happened, but he wondered about the ammo these idiots had loaded. Something new, like the ICER rounds they used?

_“Ace!”_ Selene barked.

“I’ve got it! Go!” The young man responded immediately, all business. On his word, The Wolf barreled into the group pressing in on their left, big as a pony and lashing out with everything she had. The Widow darted into the space she left in her wake, firing her Glocks.

Bucky went on shooting, too, covering their flanks as best he could without getting too far from Steve. Behind him, he could hear repulsors going off into the crowd on their right. The clicking whirr of Hawkeye’s quiver meant he’d gone to work, too.

When the pressure of the fight let up a little a few minutes later, he finally got a chance to look at his leg. He got that look just in time to see a band of green light fade from where it had encircled his thigh. Judging by the bloody tear in his gear, the bullet had managed to find the small space between kevlar panels.

Beneath the ruined cloth, though, his skin appeared whole and untouched. Like there’d been no gunshot at all. He’d definitely bled, could see still-wet blood where it had dripped down the outside of his pant leg. Without that, he’d never have known he’d taken a wound.

A few minutes later, the last of their opponents in the area dropped to a double-shot of shield-to-the-head and repulsor-to-the-sternum. Cap caught the shield on the rebound and immediately turned. “Buck?”

“I’m good,” he waved him off.

The blond opened his mouth again, but Hawkeye’s “What the…” cut him off. The archer held one arm out, twisted so he could crane his neck around to look at his tricep. “I could swear I caught a graze.”

He wasn’t the only one staring or poking in confusion at a body part. The Widow had blood on her chin, but no split in her lip to explain it. Sam poked his finger through a bloodied hole in the shoulder of his uniform, once more between kevlar panels, looking a little wild-eyed. In fact, everyone but Iron Man showed evidence of at least minor injury, but no actual damage to explain it.

The Wolf trotted back into the center of the group, reaching out to touch her nose to Ace’s hand. _“Good job, son.”_

The young man grinned. “I knew I could help. This just makes it so much easier.”

_“Pace yourself,”_ Selene warned. _“No telling how long we’ll have to stay here tonight, or what we’ll need to do.”_

“I’ll be careful.”

“Wait,” Sam broke in, finger still jammed into the hole in the shoulder of his uniform. “I know I got shot. I’m not bleeding all over the place because of you?”

Ace grinned at him. “It’s what I do.”

“This gonna hurt you two?” Steve blurted, concerned.

_“Only if this goes on for too long. So if everyone’s ready, moving on would be a very good idea. I can’t get details, but they are attempting something very large downstairs, and I’m pretty sure it means bad things for us if we let them complete it.”_

“They’re summoning something,” Ace added, expression faintly nauseous. “It’s really, really gross. Whatever it is, it needs to stay where it is.”

The Captain blew out a sharp breath. “Okay. Let’s get this done.”

They moved through the remainder of the level like a particularly violent steamroller. The ambush at that intersection must have used the bulk of the remaining armed force, because what opposed them afterward seemed pretty pathetic by comparison. Most of what they encountered went down without ever firing a shot. In minutes, they stood at the landing facing the door into the fourth sublevel.

Their leader paused in front of the portal, and everyone with firearms started reloading. “All right. They know we’re coming through here. Our only advantage is that they don’t know when. We gotta assume they’re waiting on the other side, ready to fire. Falcon, you’re on the door.”

“Right.” The medic holstered one firearm and moved up to lay a hand on the door latch.

_“Wanda,”_ Selene cut in. _“Put your hand on my shoulder, please. Ace, we’re gonna combine our power with hers to ward against whatever comes at us in there, okay?”_

She turned to regard the Scarlet Witch solemnly. _“One big ward to cover everyone until we get through that door and see what we’ve got to deal with. Wanda, can you trust us enough to just open yourself to us? You must believe we would never harm you.”_

Much to Bucky’s surprise, the young woman didn’t even hesitate. She nodded and laid her red-glowing hand on the big wolf’s shoulder. “I trust you both. We will keep them safe together.”

She gasped in the next moment, eyes widening as the shield she’d held in front of the group suddenly expanded. The energy turned a weirdly transparent brick-brown as it grew into a globe that encompassed the whole team. Shimmering, shifting restlessly, the occasional bright spark of blue, red, or green flashed on its surface as it expanded further. When it stopped growing, it looked large enough to give them at least some fighting room inside its boundaries.

_“Okay.”_ Selene looked around. _“You’re all wearing protections I set on you, but they aren’t unbreakable. If you can stay inside this bubble, you’ve got that much more cover.”_

 She gestured with her nose. _“Their true spell-slingers are in there. I can Feel them. If one of them breaks through and nails you with a hex or something, get to me or Ace. If you can’t get to us, put the word out. We’ll get to you. That’s all I’ve got, Steve.”_

“Spell-slingers?” Iron Man asked abruptly, voice tinny through the suit’s speakers. “Really? That’s an actual thing?”

She tilted her head at him, ears pricked forward. _“It is now. I’m a wordsmith, Stark. I make shit up for a living, use words to make stories the way you make machines. We’re about to face a room full of wayward Folk and their mindbending creations, and that’s what you focus on? A single term?”_

The suit didn’t shrug, but Stark managed by lifting both hands, palms up, to waist-level. “We’re about to face a room full of rogue Woo-Woo. I figured I should ask before we got too busy.”

“Anybody else?” Steve asked with a hint of exasperation.

Silence answered him. After a moment, he nodded. “Falcon, on my mark.”

They stepped into a cavernous room with thirty-foot ceilings and no apparent internal walls at all. It ran the entire length of the complex, from the stairwell door all the way to a pair of massive doors that stood in a murky pool at the end. That had to be the river outlet.

Off to the left about halfway along the space, a raised dais held a group of people wearing much fancier robes than they’d seen thus far. They seemed to be doing something that required all of their attention. None of them so much as acknowledged the intrusion.

That may have had something to do with the fact that everything else in the room did a whole lot more than just acknowledge their entry. Bucky got only that one glimpse at the layout before the large and frankly ridiculous array of Dangerous Things that stood between them and that dais reacted. Violently.

“Falcon, Iron Man, get Hawkeye and Winter Soldier into those rafters!” the Captain barked even as he flung his shield into a cluster of black-clad thugs. It ricocheted among them, taking three down, and then careened back to him. He caught it smoothly, still giving orders. “I want the fliers staying airborne as much as possible, make chaos in their ranks. Snipers, take out what you can, but especially their commanders, field sergeants, anyone who might have orders to give.”

Bucky got his sidearms holstered just in time to throw both hands up for Falcon to grab as he ascended toward the heavy iron girders above them. He had to pull his legs up to keep them out of the reach of an Arggoth on their way by. In less than a minute, his boots hit metal and he’d already pulled his rifle from his back as he ran along the girder to a support strut.

They faced maybe a platoon of black kevlar-clad fighters, plus probably another platoon’s worth of a mixed bag of creatures. Arggoths maybe a quarter of the size of what they’d seen in London, the bigger bone-plated monkey things, porcupine-monster things half again the size of the babies they’d dealt with in Brooklyn, and two or three other types of Things they hadn’t encountered yet. As he settled into a good firing position with a support at his back, he noticed something weird: the monsters didn’t move the way they had when they’d encountered them out in the world.

In fact, they didn’t behave the way they should, either. No flailing tentacles, chest-pounding roars, or bristling scales. They even ignored the squad-sized groups of humans in tac gear that moved right beside them.

“What, did you stop to eat your lunch first, Soldier?” Hawkeye asked cheekily over the comm.

Bucky snorted, then squeezed off a shot. “You seein’ what I’m seein’, Birdbrain? Buckethead?”

“The monsters ain’t actin’ like they did when we fought ‘em before!” Falcon agreed as he strafed over the mass below.

“Yeah, that.” He dropped two more targets. “They’re stayin’ in nice, neat groups. Bein’ real polite to the neighbors, too.”

“By which you mean the squid aren’t swinging their gun-toting buddies around like billy clubs,” Iron Man commented. “I did notice that.”

The brick-colored bubble of energy around their ground-bound teammates collapsed within seconds of the fliers lifting off from the group. Ace, marked by the green-glowing bird that still enveloped his head and shoulders, remained near the doors they’d entered by. The rest of the team had spread out in a kind of arc to press further into the room. They seemed to be doing pretty well, too. Unmoving bodies piled up in their wake, not all of them human.

“Selene says they’re probably being controlled,” the Captain called out. “If we take the controller out, the creatures will go back to the way they acted before. She says to look for someone who seems really focused on a group of creatures, maybe to the exclusion of everything else. They might be in those robe-things, but it’s possible they’re in kevlar. Probably won’t want to stand out.”

“Uh, do we want all these crazy lab experiments running amok in here?” Iron Man asked pointedly. “I mean, they’re mostly smaller than what we ran into before, but they’re still a pain in the ass.”

Bucky made a couple more shots, taking out a pair of human fighters as they tried to get in behind the Black Widow while she electrocuted one of their buddies with her Widow’s Bites. “They stay controlled, they stay a weapon in enemy hands,” he growled as he lined up another squad leader in his sights. “Take out their controllers, and you take the weapon away. And would you be able to concentrate on your approved target if your allies suddenly decide they’d like to eat you, instead?”

“Okay, fair point.”

Captain America would never snort derisively into the comm channel, but his tone sounded very dry as he ordered, “If you find ‘em, take ‘em out. We’ve got to get to the platform. That’s where the real trouble’s happening. Can any of you guys topside get a good shot at the people on that stage?”

“Already tried, Cap,” Hawkeye chimed in. “There’s some kinda shield or something that my arrows just bounce off. Somebody with an energy weapon wanna try?”

Iron Man turned in the air, firing a repulsor at the group on the platform. The beam skittered over the surface of a perfectly round energy shield that only became visible when something interfered with it. Except now that Bucky knew it existed, he could sort of see a faint disturbance in the area even when nothing had touched it. A little like the heat distortion off a hot road at noon, it separated the group on the platform from the chaos below them, but not by very much.

“No go, Cap,” the billionaire reported. “Whatever it is, it’s pretty good.”

“Apparently, it isn’t magical in nature.” The red, white, and blue shield ricocheted around inside a group of the big monkey-things, knocking several of them down. “Selene says it feels like the noise she picked up in your lab at the Tower, Iron Man. Whatever it is, it’s technological. See if you can find the source and shut it down.”

Iron Man headed for the platform. “On it!”

From his vantage, Bucky could see most of the team, their hands entirely full of creatures and kevlars. Where Black Widow and Quicksilver fought he caught sparks of green light now and again. He glanced toward the door where he’d last seen Ace.

The kid had crouched behind a haphazard stack of crates. He’d taken at least nominal cover, but the big green bird shape covering his head and shoulders only served to highlight his position for everyone with line-of-sight. As case in point, even as the sniper glanced his way, a pair of enemy fighters tried to sneak up on him. One of them wore the weird half-robe thing, while the other wore tac gear.

Before he could shift around to take a shot, the one in the robe rose up out of his crouch and pointed what looked like an honest-to-God _wand_ at the young man. A sickly orange light shot out of the end. When it impacted the light from Ace’s bird-cloak, though, the green flared brightly for a split second. The half-robe raised his ‘weapon’, presumably to try again, but Bucky squeezed his trigger and he slumped into unconsciousness. Another squeeze put his confused thug companion to sleep.

Much to his surprise, Ace raised a hand in a perfunctory wave at him. It hadn’t looked it, but the kid had actually noticed the whole exchange. _Well, good,_ he thought as he went back to scanning the melee below. _At least he’s not completely wrapped up in whatever he’s doing to keep us all in one piece._

“Hey, Birdbrain,” he called over the comms. “Try to keep an eye on Ace’s position over by the door. They’ve figured out he’s there. He might need some pest control.”

“Roger that!” Hawkeye responded.

Satisfied, Bucky chose another target and squeezed. The sooner they finished this, the sooner they could get Ace and Selene out of danger.


	16. Chapter 16

Steve kept track of both teams as best he could manage while he fought. Given their abilities, what they faced really shouldn’t give them too much trouble. Except for two things. By numbers, this fight probably only leaned a little bit in their enemies’ favor. Less so with every moment. This didn’t really qualify as a simple numbers fight, though, and those two exceptions had him worried.

The first exception, the monsters and science experiments controlled by people they hadn’t yet identified, didn’t actually fall too far outside the Avengers’ usual opponents fare. The thought, had while he dodged a tentacle and flung his shield at a robed thug pointing a _wand_ at Quicksilver, made him wonder briefly just where he’d gone so very wrong in his life. How had monsters and rogue science experiments become “normal”?

_Climbing into an injection chamber knowing it’d also irradiate me probably didn’t help anything,_ he reflected as he caught sight of a figure in kevlar wearing a blue armband. It waved an arm in Selene’s direction. A group of the monkey-things followed the gesture.

_Okay, that didn’t look like a coincidence._ He snatched the rebounding shield out of the air and leaped, using the head of an Arggoth as a stepping-stone to launch himself at the figure he’d marked. He could almost feel sorry for the person he landed on like a ton of bricks. A shot with the shield made sure they’d stay nice and flat before they could even try to get up. The monkey-things that had appeared to follow their gesture froze, blinked a few times, and then went…well, ape.

Several of them immediately devoted themselves to obliterating anything that moved around them. Mostly, that meant the robed and kevlar-clad people unfortunate enough not to have noticed the change. For one or two, it meant fighting each other, accidentally taking down former allies in the process. A few merely turned and shambled off, pushing roughly through the melee with no regard for anything else.

“I think I’ve got a bead on the people controlling the creatures,” he reported over the comms as he dove back in. “This one wore tac gear and a blue band on the left arm. A group of the monkeys went nuts when I took ‘em down.”

“Roger that, Cap!” Hawkeye called back.

“Got one,” Winter Soldier reported a moment later. “Buncha the Porcupine Horses going batshit, over here. Watch out for flying quills.”

“Gotta blue armband on a set of robes over here,” Falcon added. “Arggoths reverting to billy club mode with their neighbors. Man, am I glad I’m not down there!”

It all descended into chaos after that. They picked off monster controller after monster controller, sending the monsters themselves insane, until the fight became a five-sided free-for-all in which only the Avengers had any advantage at all. They had a mission, a goal, and a purpose, while their human opponents suddenly wanted only to survive and the monsters…well. Monsters. They’d be a real pain to deal with later, but right now, their sudden lack of control would help the Avengers get the job done.

_“Steve, we have to stop the people on the dais now!”_ Selene called over the melee. _“If they bring that thing they’re Calling through the portal they’ve created, none of this will matter in the slightest because everything in New York will die!”_

What might have been a Porcupine-Horse quill tore along the outside of his right thigh. He barely had time to recognize he’d taken the hit, though, before a wispy band of green light encircled the injury and negated the pain he’d barely registered. That part of this battle, he could get used to. “Iron Man, where are we on that forcefield?”

“Whatever numbnuts put this crapfest together needs to have his fingers cut off,” the billionaire responded. “This is… I don’t even know how it’s functioning. It’s a spaghetti bowl of wires all the same color, and if I pull the wrong plug, we’ll wind up fighting in the dark. I don’t know about you, Cap, but I do not want to fight death-squid in the dark.”

“Selene tells me that the Arggoths’ll be the least of our worries if we don’t get those people stopped ASAP.” He bashed a couple of robes in the backs of their heads with the shield, then used it to block an incoming monkey-fist. Or would have, except that the fist stopped about an inch from the shield’s surface with the familiar ripple of Selene’s totem’s power. “Avengers, converge on the dais so we’re close when Iron Man brings that shield down. Ending that ceremony up there is top priority!”

The monkey that had tried to punch him went down under the leap of a horse-sized, blue-glowing wolf, her teeth embedded in its throat. She jerked her head back and forth several times, then upward, and the Captain gritted his teeth against his reaction when a blood-dripping gobbet of flesh dropped out of her jaws. He’d seen bad things during the War and since coming out of the ice, but that probably matched some of the worst for sheer gore.

It didn’t stop him, though, and he flung his shield over her back to take out the robed woman pointing a stick-like wand at the Wolf. At the same moment, the lupine head whipped around to focus on something behind him, and the Winter Soldier’s voice cracked over the comms, “Cap! Watch your eight o’clock!”

A split second later, as he got half-turned, something huge and _heavy_ impacted his midsection. It knocked him right off his feet and sent him skidding backward a few feet. When he got his feet back under him, he realized that _Selene_ had hit him, knocking him out of the way of the group of six robed people who now stood there with beams of sickly-yellow light connecting the wands they held with a sort of bubble that surrounded the enormous Wolf. Most of them wore wide-eyed, panicked expressions. Clearly, they had not meant to catch what they had.

_Jesus, she pushed me out of the way and wound up taking the bullet for me, too. Beam. Whatever the hell that is._ He glanced around for his shield, which had rebounded and landed on the other side of the confrontation intended for him. Even as he realized it, a frankly terrifying snarl ripped through the air around them as the Wolf advanced one slow step toward her assailants. _Huh. Don’t think they’ve actually ‘caught’ anything, here. Except maybe a whole lot more trouble than they planned for._

“Selene!” he called, half question, half worry.

She took another menacing step toward the robed group. _“Retrieve your shield, Captain,”_ she snarled as answer. _“I have had enough of this foolishness. This ends. Now.”_

As he darted by behind her, he heard a soft, urgent whisper. _“Tell the team to cover their ears. Immediately.”_

He didn’t even question it. “Avengers! Selene’s about to do something. She wants you to cover your ears right now!”

“What—”

“Just do it!” He got the shield back into place on his arm and slapped his hands over his own ears. “Go, Selene!”

The nimbus of blue light around her suddenly brightened, completely dissipating the yellow light. Steve had to squint against the glare, surprised when he found his own body limned in blue fire. Everyone responsible for the yellow light collapsed en masse. Then she tilted her head up, opened her mouth, and _Howled_.

The sound, heard imperfectly through his hands, nearly made his knees buckle. The effect on their opponents became obvious immediately. All around him, humans and monsters alike dropped like sacks of gravel.

The humans he could see appeared as if someone had flipped a switch, turning consciousness off. The monkeys looked similar. Porcupine-horses either keeled over on their sides, out cold, or dropped to their bellies looking stunned. Not a single Arggoth remained upright, though he caught sight of a few tentacles still waving sluggishly here and there.

“What…was that?” he asked, feeling a little stunned himself. He stared at the scene for a moment longer, noted the other Avengers beginning to pick their way toward him, and turned to look at Selene.

The Wolf had dimmed, shrinking in size to the bigger-than-a-Great-Dane that had so impressed Hawkeye. Her edges seemed a little less distinct, her ears drooped slightly, and her tongue hung out of her mouth as she panted. She looked tired.

_“That was a Hail Mary play that actually worked.”_ Her voice came through softly, but she sounded pleased. _“We don’t have time to wade through this mess. We have to stop them. Now.”_

With the noise of the battle effectively silenced, the chant and ominous hum of the portal up on the dais took center-stage. Just as Winter Soldier and Falcon landed nearby, the yellow-glowing portal gave an odd pulse and expanded at least another couple of feet in diameter. The three Avengers exchanged a look.

“Aw, man, did that thing up there just get bigger?” Falcon complained.

Selene shook herself, shedding blue sparks from her fur that faded before hitting the floor. _“Yes. That’s the only thing saving us, right now. They need more time to make the portal large enough to bring what they’re Calling through.”_

“That thing’s gotta be ten feet across, already.” Winter Soldier looked grim.

_“Not big enough. The—hm. The creature they want is vast.”_

“What kinda vast are we talking, here?” Hawkeye limped closer with Black Widow at his side. “Chitauri living-personnel-carrier vast? Sokovia-damage vast?”

The Wolf turned her nose toward the dais, ears flicking back and forth for a moment as she listened. After a moment, her ears flattened and her hackles rose. _“It would make King Kong look like a toddler just learning to walk.”_

“Well that doesn’t sound good.” Widow began reloading her pistols, mouth a grim line.

“Mom!” The shout made everyone turn. Still blanketed in green light, Ace wove his way as quickly as possible through the inert bodies littering the floor, worry openly displayed in his expression. “Mom! Holy crap, why would you do that? Are you okay?”

_“It became necessary.”_ She stretched her nose out to touch his as he went to his knees in front of her, hands clutching at the ruff around her neck. _“It’s all right. I have enough to finish this.”_

“Yeah, and what about after?” He almost sounded belligerent in his concern. Steve started to worry Selene had pushed herself too far, if her son worried so much. “Will you have enough to wake up?”

Quick as a blink, she nipped the end of his nose. With a startled cry, he clapped both hands to his face, eyes wide. “Hey!”

_“I will have enough, pup.”_ She sounded stern, but it held an undercurrent of amusement. _“But not if you are too close to what we will do here. You’ve done very well, so far. Find another place to secure yourself and see if you can do something to cleanse this mess so that it will be safe for cleanup crews. Otherwise, continue doing what you have done. This will end very soon.”_

He threw a glance at the dais. “Good, because that’s gotta stop. It’s seriously nasty.” Half-turning, his green-glowing gaze ran over the fallen figures all over the floor. The Raven still cloaking his head and shoulders suddenly expanded, brightening almost painfully. When he spoke, the weird dual-tone of his voice had somehow doubled again, swelling to a near-choral sound. “I can deal with most of this. The constructs. The Arggoths will have to be burned.”

“There’s a guard booth or something over there.” Winter Soldier pointed with his chin. “Got a door and everything. Don’t know that it’d hold up if one of these things decided it wanted in, but figure you could keep ‘em out long enough for someone to get to you, at least.”

The young man nodded as he got to his feet. “Okay. Be careful, everybody. Especially you, Mom.”

_“Go.”_ She nudged him with her nose, and he headed off in the direction the Soldier had indicated.

Selene watched him go for a moment, then turned to face the dais again. She lifted her muzzle as if testing the scents on the air. _“We have to take that barrier down.”_

“Iron Man’s working on it.” Around him, firearms clicked and clanked cartridges into chambers. Hawkeye’s quiver whirred as it slid a fresh batch of shafts into his reach. He took a breath, resettling his shield on his arm, and looked at Selene. “Any suggestions about the fastest way to shut this thing down?”

The Wolf’s lips curled in a snarl, exposing frankly terrifying teeth. _“Their leader is hiding their presence in the power flows. Put all of the chanters down, and the portal should collapse.”_

“Should?” Black Widow asked, already eyeing the group on the dais.

_“If it doesn’t, they’ve tied it into another power source, and I’ll have more work to do. I won’t be able to do it until they’re all out of the way, though.”_

Inexplicably, one of the unconscious monkey-monsters lying nearby suddenly began to twitch. Everyone tensed and turned to face it, weapons raised. It didn’t get up, though. Instead, as they watched, it went stiff…and then just sort of dissolved into a puddle of chunky, gelatinous ooze. Immediately, another monkey and a small porcupine-horse close to the first one began twitching, stiffened, and also dissolved.

The Wolf’s blue-glowing tail swished side to side several times, her ears pricked forward as the dissolution spread. _“No visible power bleed. Very good, pup. He’s started cleansing the unnatural anomalies they created here. We’ve got to stop that ritual.”_

Just as she said that, the faint shimmer of the forcefield flickered, flashed red, and died.

“Hah!” Iron Man’s voice broke over the comms. “Did you see that? I finally got the line traced! Hah!”

The Captain nodded. “You all heard the lady. Let’s take ‘em down.”

* * *

Selene hadn’t been entirely forthcoming when she’d suggested she couldn’t say which of the Folk chanting on the dais lead the group. They _had_ tried to conceal their presence in the flow of power seething through their incantation, but they had thrown their patched-together power at her for more than a week and irritated her beyond endurance. Every encounter had made her more familiar with the Collective’s unique power weave, and she had even managed to pick it apart in the time between attacks. She’d memorized each unique patch’s Feel and had picked them apart in her mind until she could even recognize the power threads that had stitched them all together into a usable, if not cohesive, whole.

_That_ thread of power represented their leader. _That_ leader was _her_ prey.

She’d seen at a glance as soon as she and the Avengers had broken into the room that their Circle stood incomplete. A gap stood at the side opposite the growing portal, and it had taken her only a moment to realize that the fool she’d disabled when they’d recovered Ace had provided one of the patches in the Collective’s power. He must have meant to return here when he’d finished breaking Ace, but her son had withstood him long enough for her to get to them and thrown all their plans into further disarray.

The missing contribution of power had slowed their Calling down. The Avengers had provided her the assistance she’d needed to get here and deal with this mess far more quickly than she might otherwise have managed. The moment Stark brought their technological forcefield down, Selene locked on to the pulsing, demanding power that represented the leader.

Already weakened by serious injury before she’d even called up the Wolf, she’d used far more of her personal power reserve over the course of this operation than she might have preferred. Falling too low on power could pose a serious threat to her survival, since her connection to her body might falter or even fail, but she could not permit this abomination to survive and regrow. _Would_ _not_ permit it. So she plunged a metaphorical hand downward, deep into the earth far below the reach of the taint surrounding the facility and ignored the exhausting drain of literally _dragging_ clean power so far upward to bolster her own dwindling reserves.

She could rest when the blight had been destroyed.

In such close proximity, the strength and control of her prey surprised her. As she launched herself ahead of her companions, she threw power outward to refresh and strengthen the protections she’d woven around them against the possibility that her quarry might try to use them to threaten or control her before she could bring them down. The work of only a thought, it cost her more in personal energy than it might have if she’d done it while they waited for the shield to come down. Another mistake she’d made as a result of not having much experience in working with so large a pack.

No matter. The one she hunted stood before her, nearly in reach of her jaws. She let the Wolf take a greater measure of control. It leapt…

Shouts of anger and shrieks of panic mingled and turned to cries of pain as she and the Avengers landed on the Collective’s Circle like the wrath of an angry god. Their leader’s staff swung hard, passing through the Wolf’s head with no resistance, but it meant that her teeth and body were not solid enough to get in a blow before she landed and slewed around to face her prey once more. The robed figure whipped around to face her, its hood falling away as it did.

The person standing there wore so many sigils carved into their skin, she couldn’t see what they actually looked like. It told her a great deal about them, though, and about the magic they used. Worse, it suggested they might really believe they could control the Thing they wanted to summon. The Thing that had already begun trying to get through the too-small portal to do…she did not want to know what it would do.

_No. This ends now!_ She bunched herself, knowing it would look like the beginning of an attack. Quite naturally, her opponent braced. Instead of charging, Selene continued gathering power, fully aware that she quickly approached the end of her endurance.

“Selene! Look out!” Steve’s call came just in time. Without looking or hesitating, she leapt to the side just as a single, enormous tentacle slammed down between her and her opponent.

Cement cracked with a deafening report, sending dust into the air and befouling their footing with tilted, broken flooring. That didn’t stop the Captain from continuing between coughs. “Witch, do what you can to hold that thing off. Iron Man, Falcon, help her.”

The red glow of Wanda’s power immediately wreathed the entire length of the tentacle protruding from the portal. “I think…I can disrupt the door!” she gritted through clenched – and bared – teeth.

“Then do it!” Steve glanced around. “Quicksilver, Hawkeye, Widow, get these jokers locked down. I don’t want anyone sneaking up behind us while we finish up.”

All those orders and the affirmative responses happened inside of ten seconds while Selene located her prey in the settling dust. They had moved when the tentacle came down, just as she had, and she caught the edge of their power as they moved around near the portal. It had a desperate, slightly mad quality to it now, though even that seemed tempered with a terrifying focus that made the desperate madness into a hair-raising blade.

_My pup is here. My pack is here. This is my Place. You will not bring that Thing here!_ The Wolf in her soul still raged uppermost in her mind, and she let it. She snarled, set herself, and allowed the power she’d gathered from the land to bloom within her, trebling the size of her projection and turning her astral fur into blue fire.

For one startled second, everything seemed to freeze as every eye turned toward her. Even her opponent stopped in the act of slicing their arm open with an ornate dagger, the limb hanging over the altar upon which the group had founded the portal. Selene ended that moment herself by leaping on her prey with fangs bared. Flashes of light and sounds of violence erupted around her as her teeth closed on their throat.

Their screech of denial ended with a satisfying crash as her leap sent them through the altar setup and over the edge of the dais, landing with a bone-crushing thump on the floor beyond. Her prey went limp beneath her, and Selene immediately dragged all her power back into a tight ball she _shoved_ into their chest in search of the core of power that had given rise to all the foul horror she and her pack had dealt with over the last month and more. That core throbbed, sullen and blood-soaked, wrapped tightly in resentment and rage.

_Others hurt you, and you chose to hurt others in return. You allowed your fear to become rage and lost yourself in the fire. You believed yourself weak and mistook power for strength. You turned your back on the responsibility to and for your power and believed that having power meant that others owed something to you. You turned your back on your own humanity and believed yourself superior. You have proven yourself an even greater fool than your followers, and you must now pay the price. **You will never again use power to do harm!**_

It all lay there, written in that core of power for her to read like a book. She took it in, knowing she would mourn all that potential lost to cruelty when she’d had time to think about it, and then began the Working to lock the power away forever. This person would never again have esoteric power at their beck and call. What she’d done to the man who’d harmed Ace, she trebled, and trebled again. Nine Seals with her Sigil upon them would keep anyone in their right mind from so much as considering tampering with what she had locked down.

_Three and Three and Three,_

_What is Sealed_

_Evermore shall be._

_Let none who See_

_Dare set thee free!_

_Harm to none,_

_May none harm ye,_

_As Above, so Below,_

_So mote it be._

“No, seriously, you cannot disturb her right now. It’s not even possible.” Ace’s voice sounded close by and weary as the last Seal settled into place and her awareness returned to the world around her. “We just have to wait. She’s not actually biting, anyway. Their neck’s a little scratched up, but I can fix that when she’s done.”

“What she is doing is big and _powerful_.” Wanda spoke up next, and she sounded disturbed. “This is… I do not understand what I Sense, here. Is it a Binding?”

“Like the guys that attacked you, Ace?” Steve just sounded worried.

“Uh, more like what she did to the guy in my cell. Except this is…a whole lot more.”

“Has she got the power left for that?” She could hear the concerned frown in Bucky’s voice.

“I… I don’t know.” A tense worry entered Ace’s voice here. “I’ve never actually seen the Wolf before today, and we’ve never really talked about it in much detail. I’d have said she was on the edge for power even before Mister Stark took that barrier down, but… I don’t know.”

Fatigue crashed in on her then, and she realized she still had her astral teeth wrapped around her former opponent’s throat. It took real effort to open her jaws and lift her head to look around. Ace knelt at her left, beside her head, a worried crease between his brows and looking a little wilty around the edges. Steve and Bucky knelt at her right, wearing identical frowns, with Sam hovering anxiously behind them. Stark stood a short distance away, faceplate up and a little wild-eyed. She could Feel the other members of the pack – team – gathered in a loose circle around her, tired and concerned, but couldn’t muster the energy to turn far enough to see them. She also Felt Ace’s power sliding among them to soothe and heal hurts gained in the fight.

_Good. Pup is… No. Ace didn’t forget his job even when all the shit hit all the fans._ She wanted to shake her head, try to clear some of the fog of fatigue from her thinking, but it seemed a monumental effort.

“Mom?” He sounded so worried. For that, she managed to turn her head far enough to look at him squarely.

_“I’m here.”_ With effort, she stretched her neck and solidified just enough to briefly touch her nose to his forehead. _“You did so well. I’m proud of you.”_

He flushed and smiled, the expression a little wobbly, but the worry didn’t disappear. “Are you okay? You did a _lot_.”

_“The portal?”_

“Closed and disappeared when you and Wanda did…uh, whatever you did.” Steve’s voice sounded a little thick. Selene struggled to turn her head to look at him, suddenly needing to make sure he was all right.

Bucky nodded as he came into her view. “Cut off a big chunk of that tentacle, though. It’s still laying over there.”

Neither of them appeared injured. Without thinking, much less considering _why_ , she reached out and solidified again to touch her nose to Bucky’s forehead, then to Steve’s. As she turned to look at Ace, though, her control slipped a little. She Felt her astral form flicker briefly.

“Mom!”

_“I’m all right. Just…very tired. I…can’t hold on any longer.”_ Even as she said it, she Felt another flicker, more profound than the last. Alarm prickled at her as she wondered if she had enough left to get back to her body. _“Purify the tentacle if you can, son. Or accelerate its decay. No one should touch it, though. I’ll see you…when you get back…to the Tower. I…have to go…”_

Her legs gave first, but she didn’t last long enough to feel her belly hit the floor. She lost her grip on the astral form and barely managed a wild grab for the tenuous connection to her body before tumbling into blackness.


	17. Chapter 17

Ace levered himself out of bed and staggered across the hall to the bathroom, dodging frisking dogs and feeling as if he hadn’t slept nearly enough. Washing his face and brushing his teeth helped, but he’d begun to feel over the last two weeks as though this was a permanent condition. Even if it wouldn’t be. Not if he had anything to say about it.

“Because this, right here? This is bullshit,” he told Dusk and Sable. They interrupted their Happy-Good-Morning Dance around him to perk their ears and stare hopefully. He took advantage of their stillness to slip between them and head for the kitchen. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You guys don’t care. You just want your breakfast.”

He set their bowls down and stuffed a couple of PopTarts in the toaster, got a mug of cocoa started in the coffee machine, then headed back down the hall to finish getting ready for the day. Sam had said someone would come by to pick him up sometime around noon. Since his phone display claimed it was only nine-thirty, he still had plenty of time, but he had make-up school assignments to work on and he wanted to be ready to go when whoever came actually arrived. He would take his school work with him up to the Tower, but he sort of doubted he’d have time to make any progress with it today. He’d already made up his mind.

If his mother still hadn’t awakened when he got there today, he would go In and try to find her to bring her home.

The thought terrified him. She’d mentioned a long time ago that he would eventually be able to ‘retrieve’ some coma patients, depending on the reason for their coma, when he’d gained enough strength and control. Her mention of it had been only in passing, because at the time he’d only barely begun learning to use his power and she’d said it as part of a long spiel answering his question about the kinds of things he would be able to do someday. They’d never touched on it again, so he honestly had no idea whether he _could_ manage it now and she’d just not gotten around to teaching him, or if there might be power cost or other pitfalls he had no idea about and she hadn’t taught him because he didn’t yet have the skill to navigate them safely.

Pausing with a fresh shirt in his hand, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. _No. It’ll be fine. She didn’t let the unknown stop her from trying to get to me, and I am not about to let it keep me from getting her back. I know she’s needed all this rest, she’s gotta be in there somewhere, I’ll just need to be careful about what I do. Go slow, feel it out, find her, and it’ll be fine._

The first two days after they’d taken the Secret Empire’s base down, Ace had slept like the dead in the medical bed beside his mother’s. The third day, he’d gotten up, managed meals and a shower, but he’d done it in a haze of fatigue and Bucky said he’d looked a lot like a zombie. He awakened with a clear head on the fourth day to discover the Avengers had handled literally everything else while he and his mother were down.

Sam, Steve, and Bucky had taken care of feeding Dusk and Sable and letting them out periodically every day. They’d even brought them up to the Tower for a visit, a couple of times. Natasha called his school, impersonating his mother to say he was out with the flu every single day – and continued to do so. Pepper contacted Carnegie with a heavily-edited explanation about his mother being in the hospital, and they’d granted him a leave from his internship. It would still be there for him when he could get back.

Gen had brought his school work to him at the end of the first week, saving him the logistical nightmare of retrieving it from the school without making convoluted explanation of his ‘illness’. He’d even been home when she showed up, informing him that he looked like shit and he’d better go back to bed. He thanked her profusely and actually followed her advice.

All the help had allowed him to focus on his own recovery, and then on his mother’s. Careful not to overtax his still-shallow power reserves, he rebuilt her shoulder over the course of three days, then finished off the little healing still needed in her face from impact with the airbag. He could Feel how profoundly she’d exhausted herself while he Worked, knew that she would not have had the strength to heal the normal way, and for a few days worried that she had pushed too far to come back.

_Mom’s stubborn, though,_ he reminded himself for the thousandth time as he sat down and reached for his Literature textbook. _There’s no way she’d leave me without a fight, and she’s gotten a lot of strength back over the last week. She’s still weak, but it’s coming back. She might just need a beacon, maybe a little pull. It’ll be fine._

He was up to his eyeballs in trying and failing to understand a Trigonometry unit when a knock sounded at the door and the dogs exploded into barking. Glad of the excuse, he abandoned the textbook and went to answer the door.

“Hey, man!” Sam greeted him with a grin. “You’re looking better. How’re you feeling?”

Ace grimaced and stepped back, opening the door wider. “Like I’ve run a triathlon without training, and someone scooped my brain out and dropped it in a blender. I really hate math. C’mon in.”

“Yikes. What’re you working on?”

“Trig. I’m usually pretty good with the shapes and angles and stuff, but this unit’s almost all formulas and I can’t make them make sense.” He closed the door and chuckled as the Avenger greeted the dogs, who wriggled and ‘talked’ at him enthusiastically. “Gimme a couple minutes to get my stuff together and we can go. How’s Mom today?”

“Still no change. Doctor Cho seems pretty happy with her overall condition, though. She can’t shut up about what you did with her shoulder. I think she wants about a hundred more of you.”

Ace huffed a wry chuckle and turned to go stuff his school work into his backpack. Doctor Cho made him a little uncomfortable, always hinting around wanting to run tests on him while he Healed someone. He’d decided to ignore the hints and let his mother deal with it after she’d recovered. She had way more experience navigating stuff like that.

“Well, she’s outta luck,” he called. Pack zipped, phone, keys, and wallet in his pockets, he grabbed his jacket off the back of his desk chair and headed back down the hall. “There’s just me, and that’s how it’s gonna hafta stay. Okay, I’m ready to go.”

Sam turned from where he’d watched the dogs meandering around the back yard. He opened the door and whistled to call them back in. “That was quick. Have you had lunch, yet?”

“Oh. Uh.” Ace glanced guiltily around the kitchen. “I…had breakfast about a quarter to ten…”

“Yeah, that ain’t gonna cut it.” Sam chuckled. “Happens I haven’t had lunch yet, either. We’ll get something at the Tower. C’mon, let’s get going.” He closed and locked the back door and they headed out, around the side of the building to where he’d parked his car.

“So, we had a briefing this morning,” the Avenger began as they pulled into traffic. “Director Coulson and his people have been interviewing all the Empire people we swept up, and we’re starting to get a picture of what they were up to. It turns out the Porcupine Horses here in Brooklyn and the Arggoths in London were screw-ups, or maybe unscheduled changes in plan. It seems like they didn’t give the middle management and basic grunts very much information. The top dogs aren’t talking, except for the one your Mom scared half to death in that cell. Even his information’s pretty spotty and disconnected.”

“The monsters were an _accident?_ ” Ace had a hard time believing that.

“Well, releasing the monsters was, from the sound of it.” Sam shook his head. “Apparently they did mean to release them, but the original plan was to let ‘em all go at once. Nobody seems to know for sure whether the actual releases happened deliberately, accidentally, or by sabotage.”

That made a little more sense. “What about me and Mom?”

For a long moment, Sam seemed to hesitate, as if weighing what or how much to tell. Ace gritted his teeth, determined to wait him out. “How’re you really doing, Ace? I mean, with all of this. You’ve been through a lot in the last couple of months.”

He sighed and ground his palms into his eyes. “I… Yeah, it’s been a lot, and parts of it scared the hell out of me. Not gonna lie. I’m most worried about Mom right now, ‘cause…well, you know. Her health, and all this… She’s probably gonna have an MS relapse, and I’m not gonna be able to do anything about it. That happens sometimes when she’s been really stressed, and this…was a lot of stress. For both of us, I guess, but I don’t have the shit to deal with that she does.”

“Okay, that’s fair. But you know you gotta take care of yourself if you wanna have the bandwidth to be able to help take care of her.”

Deep breath, in slow, out slow. “Yeah. I know. I’ve been meditating, trying to…just calm down, I guess. It’s not like I had any control over all this. I didn’t do anything to cause any of it. That’d be that jackass Rick.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, a big piece of that’s on him. It sounds like they recruited him specifically to get to Selene. I guess they didn’t have to work very hard to recruit him, either, since he seems to have convinced them he could do what they wanted. He’s the reason they even knew about you, from what he’s said. He’s singing like a bird.”

Ace huffed a bitter laugh. “Yeah, that sounds like him. Anything to benefit himself.”

“So…you want to talk to someone about it?” Sam asked after a long silence.

“Are you offering?”

“Not me, no. That’d be unethical, and might not be all that helpful anyway. I actually know you, and I know what happened.” He shook his head. “I mean someone who doesn’t know you or Selene, someone completely impartial and uninvolved in any other part of your life so you can talk to them about everything without worrying about judgment or criticism. They’d be able to give you some more tools to help handle what you’ve been through. Like the nightmares.”

Startled, Ace stared at him. “How did you know?”

“You’ve been wearing a look I’ve seen on a lot of other people in my time with the VA, Ace. It’s okay, too. You’re totally entitled to those nightmares, and they’re perfectly normal. I think I might have worried about you if you _weren’t_ having them.”

“So…you’re talking about a therapist of some kind.”

Sam nodded again. “Probably a psychologist, actually, but yes. Something like that.”

“It’d…have to be someone who wouldn’t freak out over Mom and me having power, you know, or try to…do something about it.” He stared out the window as he considered the idea. The thought of having someone he could tell about the nightmares, anxiety, and random panic without feeling like he was burdening them with his baggage on top of theirs – like his Mom – sounded really good, but… “There isn’t much point in talking to them if I can’t tell them about that part.”

“Good point. Steve and Bucky have someone they see fairly regularly, and so do Wanda and Pietro. I think Pepper’s even got Tony going to someone, too. SHIELD keeps someone on retainer, I think. Okay if I put out some feelers and see who I can find? You and your Mom can decide together.”

Ace nodded agreement and bit his lower lip to prevent the wobble he felt coming on as his eyes unexpectedly filled. Over just the thought of someone to talk to. Maybe he needed it more than he realized. He took another deep breath and cleared his throat.

“Yeah, that might be good. I’ll think about it. Now, you wanna tell me what they wanted with me and Mom? I promise, it can’t be any worse than the shit my imagination’s given me to stare at.”

Sam eyed him sidelong as they pulled up to a stack of traffic at a red light. They’d started to creep forward before he answered. “Their leader heard about The Wolf, apparently ran afoul of her a couple times early on, and decided they wanted to recruit her. Which is to say they wanted control of her power, obviously. So the Secret Empire - that's what they're calling themselves, by the way - they put out feelers, and eventually, they tripped over Hamilton. You were a huge bonus into the deal when they found out about you, though apparently they never knew exactly what you do.”

“Yeah, Rick didn’t hang around long enough to see me discover my abilities. He was long gone when Mom started teaching me.” He sighed. “So that tallies with what the dickhead Mom Sealed told me in that stupid cell. They were gonna threaten me to make Mom cooperate, and he threatened Mom to make me cooperate. I can’t believe they didn’t try to find out more about us, as people, after Rick started running his mouth.”

“There are still a lot of weird gaps in our information about their plans,” Sam agreed. “A lot of holes no one seems to have answers to fill. It seems like the only one who knew everything is their ‘Supreme Leader’, and they aren’t talking.”

That startled a bark of laughter out of Ace. “Supreme Leader? Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Sam grinned. “That’s how they’ve all referred to them. We haven’t been able to find a name to put to them, either. It’s got Tony, Vision, and Daisy baffled and pissed off. They burned off their fingerprints and DNA hasn’t turned up in any database. They went to a lot of trouble to erase their identity completely, and so far, they’ve succeeded.”

“So what was the whole point? They did a lot of bragging about a ‘greater goal’ or some stupid thing, but what was the actual endgame? What did they think they were gonna do with that disgusting Thing they wanted to bring through their portal?” That was the one thing Ace couldn’t figure, and he’d had plenty of nightmares about it. It didn’t make sense to bring something like That into the surface world if it didn’t leave anything alive to…what? Rule over?

But Sam shook his head yet again. “No idea. Everyone willing to talk seems to have their own idea of what was going on, but they don’t quite match up with what happened. There had to be a goal, there always is. We’re going with ‘global hostage situation’ for the time being. It’s about the only thing we can come up with that’d fit all the pieces we have.”

“I guess that works as well as anything else.” Ace frowned at the dashboard. “And we just have to wait and see what else any of them say, huh? D’you think any of the other bigwigs will eventually talk?”

“Not a clue.” Sam shrugged. “We’ve at least identified all of them, and it’s apparently made a really big mess in various professional worlds. They’re spread across a bunch of different fields in their public lives, kinda like Hydra was but on a smaller scale. This investigation’s gonna go on for a while.”

Ace sighed. “Well… That’s how Mom prefers to do this stuff, if she has a choice. She says it’s her job to stop bad stuff happening and prevent it happening in the future, but not to give out punishments for bad behavior. It’s not like there’re jails or parole systems for Folk like us, and she’s got enough on her plate without trying to be those, too. It’s not always possible, like with the two she Sealed that night, but if she can leave the punishments to mundane authorities, she’d rather do it that way.”

“I think I remember her saying something like that a while back. It makes sense. Those systems are already in place, and I guess if they’ve been breaking magical…uh, rules? They’ve probably broken regular laws, too.”

“Most of the time, yeah.”

They pulled into the underground parking at the Tower in pensive silence, and Ace would have forgotten about food entirely if Sam hadn’t asked FRIDAY to have their lunches delivered to the medical floor. As soon as the elevator opened, he made a beeline straight for his mother’s room. He could hear voices as he approached; Steve, Bucky, and a voice he didn’t recognize with the slightly electronic quality that suggested it came from the speakers of a phone or tablet, or maybe the television on the wall. He hesitated in the hall outside the open door. Were they having a tele-meeting in there? Should he go in or wait?

“…no one but The Wolf. I have a message for them, and information I believe they desire. Tell them that I know what happened to the engineer and the soldier in the mountains. If they come to me and give me what is mine, I will tell them what I know.”

He didn’t recognize the cold, detached voice, but what it said sent a chill down his spine. He knew what it meant, and knew his mother would want to know whatever this person had to offer. It sounded like the price might not be something she would want to pay, though.

“I don’t know, Buck.” Steve’s voice sounded dubious. “It sounds like a ploy to me. Another try at getting near Selene. You and Stark have never been in any mountains together, even if it doesn’t make sense they’d mean you two.”

“FRIDAY hasn’t found anything like that connected to Selene or Ace yet, either,” Bucky agreed. “There’s gotta be something, but I think you’re right anyway. It’s a ploy.”

Ace knew. He didn’t know for sure whether his mother would want him to say so, but they sounded so concerned. It didn’t seem right to leave them in the dark. He stepped forward, into the doorway, and slung his backpack under the chair sitting just beside the opening. On the television, a still picture of someone in a jail jumpsuit with no hair and sigil tattoos covering every inch of visible skin sat at an interview table, expressionless and dead-eyed.

“Oh, hey, Ace!” Steve greeted him with a slightly tense smile. “How ya holdin’ up?”

“Hey, Ace.” Bucky tapped at the tablet in his hand, killing the television display.

“Hi, guys.” He slung his jacket into the chair. “So, um, who was that talking just now? That wants to talk to Mom? They're the one she took down that night, at the end. I remember the tattoos.”

They exchanged a strained look, and then glanced over his shoulder at Sam almost in unison.

“We heard it out in the hall as we walked up,” Sam explained. He sounded reluctant.

Ace nodded and moved further into the room, settling into an unoccupied chair beside his mother’s bed. She lay as she had for nearly two weeks, still and pale. IV lines ran into her left arm, a nearly-empty bag hanging limp above the head of the bed. He hated seeing her like this, knew she’d hate being this way if she were awake to know about it. She’d be agitating to get up way too soon after she woke, he knew, and he’d be happy to argue that with her if she’d just _wake up_.

He sighed. “I know what they mean. I wanna know who that was.”

Bucky grimaced. “It was that Supreme Leader character.”

“They said they won’t talk to anyone but Selene,” Steve added. “And they haven’t. They gave that statement last week, and they haven’t said a word since.”

“They’re talking about my aunt and uncle.” Ace cupped his mother’s hand between both of his, chafing it a little when he found her skin cool to the touch. “They died when I was fourteen, and it really tore Mom up. The police called it a car accident, but Mom had given them both totems like you guys have. She Felt it when they died, and she says it wasn’t an accident. Something attacked them.”

He sighed. “My aunt was an engineer in the Army Reserve. My uncle was an active-duty soldier, training troops getting ready to deploy. They were both officers, stationed in Colorado at the time. Mom flew out, after, to take care of the mundane stuff. And to figure out what really happened.”

His mother had been angry when she left, angry and frustrated when she returned. “Whatever attacked them ran their car off the road, right through a guardrail in a mountain pass, but I don’t think the crash was what actually killed them. She didn’t talk about it too much except to warn me to be careful, but I know she lost the trail of whatever did it. I know she hasn’t let it go, though, even if she doesn’t talk about it. There’s a map of the area around Denver up on the wall in the Work Room with pins and marks on it. She’s still Hunting.”

“So she’s gonna wanna know whatever it is this Supreme Leader has to tell,” Bucky concluded after a long moment.

“Yeah, but not if what they want in exchange is more than she’s willing to give. The Seal she put on that particular person is probably the biggest, scariest Seal I’ve ever Seen. If they want her to take it off, and that’s the only thing I can think of they’d want from her specifically, she’ll turn it down flat. I know it. That Seal means she will _never_ permit them to use their power again.”

Sam leaned forward in the chair he’d set at the foot of the bed. “Okay, stick a pin in that Sealing thing, ‘cause I’m gonna wanna come back to that later. I’m not sure I quite get it. But this other thing, your aunt and uncle and this Supreme Leader…you think your Mom’d just leave it on the table?”

“In a heartbeat. She won’t release their power. Not after doing what she did to them. Even if it means losing a chance at that information.”

“It’s a little bit moot right now, anyway.” Steve frowned, his gaze turning to the woman in the bed. “She can’t make any decisions about it the way she is.”

Now or never. Ace swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “I…might be able to do something about that.”

Suddenly, all three sets of eyes bored into him, concerned and intent. Steve broke the silence. “What do you mean, you might be able to do something about it?”

“That ain’t gonna wipe you out again, is it? You’re still not quite up to snuff after all that bullshit.” Bucky frowned at him.

Sam eyed him suspiciously. “I get you want her to wake up, but is whatever you’re planning safe for _both_ of you? Because your mother will kick all our asses if you pull her out of this and hurt yourself in the process.”

The absurd truth of that statement startled a laugh out of Ace, and he went on laughing at the startled expressions on Steve and Bucky. It took him several moments to control himself well enough to answer their questions.

“Oh, wow.” He snickered. “Sorry, just…you’re not wrong about that, and the expressions on you two… Wow. Okay, sorry. No, it won’t wipe me out because I’ll be careful. I don’t think what I’m gonna try will take very much power, exactly. Just concentration. I hope.”

“And it’s safe?” Steve, this time.

“Should be. Mom once told me that eventually, I’d be able to do this. She said it a long time ago and it hasn’t come up again, but I remembered it last night and I think I know what she meant. I’m going to give it a try.”

Without giving them a chance to argue, he closed his eyes and dove In. He got hold of the core of his own power, anchoring himself firmly, and absently noted that his Sense of the Raven had strengthened now that he knew what lived there. A kind of acknowledgement passed through him then, and he suddenly felt much more confident about what he intended to do.

First, then… Out. He zeroed in on his connection to his mother through the touch of their hands and through their shared blood, pulling himself closer in search of the blue bonfire of her power. Usually, he could find it without any real effort, but this time he had to try a little harder to orient himself. As he went, he absently checked her health, made sure no infections had tried to settle in and looked in on her shoulder and other injuries to make certain they had healed properly. Finding nothing amiss, he settled in beside her Center and gathered some of his own power up.

Using his power, he Sent out his Call, lighting himself up like a beacon. _Mom! Mom, I don’t know if I’m doing this right, if you can hear me, but if you can it’s time to come back! Everyone’s worried about you, and I need you at home! I miss you a lot! Mom!_

How long he sat like that, Calling to her, he had no idea. Eventually, a faint flutter caught his attention. He stilled, waiting to see if it happened again. He’d almost decided it was nothing more than wishful thinking when it came again. And a third time a little while later. The fourth time, he realized what he’d noticed was coming from  _outside_.

In a rush, he fled back into himself. In less than a heartbeat, he’d made sure to settle properly back In, and then hurried Up to the waking world. Sunlight from the windows blinded him for a moment when he opened his eyes. Blinking back tears of reaction to all that light, he tightened his grip on his mother’s hand and looked into her face…

…to find her watching him with warmth and pride in her gaze and a faint smile curving her lips.

“I Heard you, son.” Her voice sounded dry, with a bit of a rasp, but clear enough. “I couldn’t answer yet, but I Heard you, loud and clear. You did so well.”

Tears blurred his vision again, this time with relief and happiness. His Hail Mary play had worked!

The reaction to her words from around the room was electric, all three Avengers jerking to attention in their seats, but he barely noticed as he lurched to his feet to scoop her into an awkward half-hug and just let the tears flow. Just for a minute. Now that he knew for certain his mother would be all right, he could let himself cry. Could put the burden of the last couple of months down, at least for this moment.

Dimly, he realized that he had already decided to take up Sam’s offer of finding some kind of therapist. For this moment, though, it could wait. He’d tell him later. Now, with the familiar feel of his mother’s arms around him and relief pounding through him like a drum, he finally felt safe enough to just. Let. It. Go.


	18. End-Credits Scene

“Easy on that switch, Selene!” Steve laughed as the lift lowered her to the sidewalk from the van. “You’re gonna dump yourself into the street!”

Ace, returning after herding Dusk and Sable into the back yard, snickered at the proceedings while Steve and Bucky got his mother unloaded from the van. Her MS had done exactly what he’d expected, flaring up with something new that took the strength from her legs. Doctor Cho and Mister Stark each seemed to take that as a personal challenge, which ended in a tailor-made treatment regimen and a whole suite of Stark Tech assistive devices. Doctor Cho seemed confident the treatment would shorten the flare and restore the use of her legs, but she’d had to come home with the van and wheelchair, at least. Predictably, she was both grateful for the offer of, but not at all happy about needing, the tech.

In the end, it took the combined concern of Ace and about half the Avengers, made as glaringly obvious as they could manage, to get her to accept the help. Pepper had finally tipped the scale in their favor by announcing she’d set up a charity program to offer the new wheelchairs, vans, and other devices to patients with MS and other chronic illnesses in need of devices they couldn’t afford. Much to Stark’s chagrin, Selene had still refused to allow him to install FRIDAY in her building.

She stuck her tongue out at Steve as the lift set her gently on the sidewalk. He laughed and she grinned as Bucky stepped around the front of the van. “Was he always this much a mother hen, Bucky?” she asked teasingly.

“Just since the War.” He smirked as Steve spluttered offense. “Give the guy just a little responsibility, and he turns into a Nervous Nellie about everyone but himself.”

Steve turned back to the ramp he’d just installed over the front stoop steps, giving it another nudge to make sure it had settled in correctly. “Yeah, yeah, you’re both hilarious. Just for that, you can bring her stuff in all by yourself, Buck!”

“Hey!”

Ace laughed along with them as he collected his mother’s bag of clothing and notebooks from the back of the van. He’d only made it halfway up the walk when his phone rang from his back pocket. He fished it out and thumbed at the screen to accept the call before he’d really registered that it was a video call, not just a standard call. “Oh, crap.”

“Oh crap? Man, nice to see you, too, jerk!” Peter’s grinning face filled most of the screen. It looked…battered. A scab slashed across his bottom lip, another over his eyebrow, and he looked a little bruised around the eyes. “Did we call at a bad time?”

 _Oh, crap._ Even with the awkward timing, Ace couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face, then folded into a concerned frown. “Nah, it’s okay. We’re just bringing Mom home from the hospital, is all. What happened to your _face?_ And who’s ‘we’?”

“Hospital? Oh crap, is she okay? Do you guys need help around the house? Should we come down?”

“We wouldn’t be bringing her _home_ if she weren’t okay, you nerd.” He chuckled. “She’s having an MS flare, but it’s not too bad. She’s in a wheelchair for a while, and she’s got some new meds. And you didn’t answer my questions.”

“Huh?”

“What happened to your face? You look like you got beat!” Ace had to fight to keep his too-recent memories of his own face looking like that from overwhelming him. A cold ball of worry condensed in his chest in spite of his efforts.

Peter, oblivious, coughed and looked sheepish. “I…uh… You should see the other guy?”

Ace blinked. “Are you serious? You got in a fight?”

“Um. Kind of. I mean, yeah, but it was…complicated.”

“Complicated. I’ll just bet.” He sighed. “Okay, so, we’ll come back to that when I’m done getting Mom settled back home. So who’s ‘we’?”

“Oh!” The picture joggled as Peter moved around, stretching his arm out to widen the view. “Me and Ned! Say hi, Ned!”

In the background, seated in Peter’s desk chair, Ned grinned and waved. “Hi, Ned!”

Ace laughed as Peter affected disgust and shook his head. “Oh my god, you are such a dork!”

“Like you didn’t know he was gonna do that, Petey.” Ace headed inside, making sure both front doors were propped securely so Bucky could get through with the boxes of assistive devices Stark had sent. “What’re you guys up to?”

“We haven’t seen you since school started back up, so we figured we’d call and see if you wanted to come by and hang out. But if you’d rather, we could come down, instead. Help you and your Mom.”

“Is that Peter?” his mother asked as he walked into the living room of their apartment.

“Uh-huh!”

“Hi Peter!” She raised her voice. “Say hello to May for me!”

“Sure will!” Peter called back. “Glad you’re feelin’ better, Miz Thomas!”

“Me too, Miz Thomas!” Ned hollered from the background.

She chuckled. “You can go if you want, Ace. We’ll be fine, here.”

Ace headed for his mother’s bedroom to drop her bag on her bed just as Bucky came through the door with the first box of… _stuff_. None of them had any real idea of exactly what Stark had sent along. “Where’d you want me to put this, Selene?”

On the screen, Peter’s eyebrows jumped at the sound of his voice. “So you said ‘we’re’ bringing your mom home from the hospital. Your turn to answer ‘who’s we’!”

 _Crap, Ned can’t keep a secret to save his life, and Peter’s not too much better. We don’t want too many people knowing the guys are living here. Crap, crap, crap._ “Uh. Some people drove us back from the hospital ‘cause of the wheelchair, and there’s some stuff that has to be installed here. Shower seat and grip bars and stuff like that.”

“I thought she already had that stuff.”

“Eh, she does, but I guess the guy at the hospital didn’t like what she told him. Said it’s ‘not good enough’ and sent different things.” Which was exactly what Stark had said when his mom had argued she already had what she’d need. “I don’t even know what all she’s got in there. We’re gonna sort through it in a little while. I think I’m gonna stay here today, guys.”

“You think your mom’d mind if we come down? Seriously, we haven’t seen either of you in forever.”

“No, your mom will not mind if Peter and Ned come down this evening. We’ll order pizza and plan your birthday party.” His mother's voice came from behind him, making him jump.

“Holy crap, Mom, you scared me!” Ace complained, clutching at his chest while Peter and Ned laughed at him. “That chair is _way_ too quiet!”

She grinned at him. “The guys are bringing the last of the stuff in. I’m gonna empty that bag, and then we’ll go through all that crap to figure out what I’ll actually use and what needs to go back. Go help with that, and Peter and Ned can come down around five. You can call and see if Gen can swing by, too.”

Ace frowned at her. “Are you sure? I don’t want to tire you out.”

“Pssh. You’re all old enough not to need a babysitter. If I’m tired, I’ll go to bed. I have things I need to catch up on, anyway. You guys can have the living room and keep the dogs out from under my wheels, huh?”

“Okay.” He looked down at his phone. “Hear that, guys? Text me if anything changes, and I’ll see you around five?”

“Yesssssss!” Peter and Ned hiss-chorused. Ace laughed.

“Okay, see you then! Bye!”

The line cut before he could respond. He shook his head, still chuckling, and stuck the phone back in his pocket. “Crazy idiots. Thanks, Mom.” He leaned down to hug her.

She kissed his cheek. “You’re welcome, sweetheart. It’ll be nice to get back to normal, huh?”

“Yeah.” He edged around her and headed back down the hall to find two super-soldiers setting the last of the boxes down on the floor in the living room. _Hm. Well, as normal as possible, I guess. This new normal isn’t so bad_ _._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, four-ish years ago, I started writing a story to entertain my Kiddo. I never intended it to go anywhere or be anything. And, you know, Life Happens and Things Change, and I picked it up and put it down many times, just kind of poking and prodding at it from time to time. Then, Kiddo asked for more. I wrote more, but not fast enough, so Kiddo paid me the Ultimate Compliment and started writing fanfic for my fanfic!! I was flabbergasted. Even better, we started collaborating on the new stuff. And then a Really Good Friend challenged me to post something, anything, so long as it was a completed fic. This one was the closest I had to "finished", and I was excited because Kiddo, so here we are. I want to thank everyone who came along on this ride. Your Kudos have been amazing encouragement, the Comments an absolute delight, and I appreciate every single view!


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